Mercy
by fourleggedfish
Summary: House calls Wilson for help in the middle of Wilson's first real date since Amber died. Post "Birthmarks." EXPLICIT SLASH, non-con. Don't like, don't read. Originally for a Dark!Wilson prompt on LJ - Why is Wilson anxious?
1. Chapter 1

Wilson's eyes drifted up from the patient file to encounter the lone figure of House lounging against the wall on the other side of the clinic, watching him with that speculative gleam in his eyes, as if Wilson were a list of symptoms on his white board. Wilson threw him an irritated grimace but House continued to stare, his face mostly blank but hinting at something rather cold.

Wilson felt his stomach twist into a knot. Oh god. Did House know? There was no way – no, he'd been drugged. The evidence was gone, there was nothing to betray him and House couldn't possibly remember. No.

Wilson cast his mind back anyway, to the night before. Maybe he had missed something. Maybe House had figured it out after all…

* * *

_Wilson tiptoed back into the bedroom after returning the metal morphine stash-box to its unreachable shelf in the living room. It was late, far past midnight, but the apartment had only recently fallen silent. He was angry though he knew that House couldn't help either his mercurial leg or his short temper. It was just that Wilson had been on a date when House called four hours ago – the first one since Amber's funeral, actually. Wilson had been looking forward to it all week. In truth, he had been hoping to break his dry spell before the evening ended, but…_

_He sat down on the edge of the bed and felt for House's pulse. The man had been balled up on the couch by the time Wilson showed up, clutching his leg with whitened knuckles and desperate for relief from the unrelenting breakthrough pain. He would have handled the injection himself but he was past the point of being able to climb the step ladder to retrieve his morphine. Wilson refused to give it to him at first, partly out of spite for having his evening, and his prospects, ruined. This, of course, led to an argument wherein House dredged up a ridiculous list of grievances against Wilson, stretching back years, most of them revolving around House's pills and what he called a lack of caring on Wilson's part, no matter the fact that Wilson had been married for most of those years and House's mere existence had pretty much seen to it that those marriages ended abruptly, whether on purpose or not. House even described Wilson as cruel a few times, and Wilson caved within an hour just to shut him up._

_Wilson studied him while he timed his pulse. House was actually a handsome man when he wasn't snarking or being an ass…when he wasn't awake, in other words. Wilson ran his spare hand over the scruff on House's cheek. His lined face appeared smoother, younger in his drug-induced slumber. Wilson had given him the highest safe dose just to put him out for the rest of the night. He didn't have any interest in continuing the shouting match, and House needed the rest anyway. He had bags the size of water balloons under his eyes. _

_The steady rise and fall of House's chest calmed Wilson too, and he let his fingers trace the tendons in House's neck. They rarely touched each other, not with a purpose. They brushed in the halls or occasionally sat too close in a booth at a restaurant or bar, but they didn't touch like this. House's skin was smooth beneath Wilson's fingers, warm and soft, but still present, still firm. Wilson worked his fingers through House's hair, surprisingly soft hair for a man as careless in his appearance as House was. Of course, it was still a little sweaty at the moment, but it would dry in short order. _

_Pulse rate 82. That was good._

_Wilson drew his hands back and reached for a blanket, but he paused before covering House up. House was lying on his left side, curled up a bit with his hands tucked against his chest and stomach, his back to Wilson. He had sunk into the contours of the mattress the way that sleeping children often do, molded to blankets and pillow in a picture of perfect serenity. It was endearing; House never looked peaceful, or even content during his conscious hours. Wilson pooled the blanket back near House's feet and just looked at him for a second, thinking things he normally didn't. Things like how smooth House's legs looked in his flannel pants, how long and attractive his body was, how his arms rested so nicely in the concavity of his stomach, how narrow his hips were and how, for a man, the subtle swell of his ass was actually quite attractive. _

_Without thinking, Wilson reached out to touch the jut of a hip bone, which he followed up to House's waist. There was a mere hint of softness under his fingertips, just enough pliancy to encourage him to explore further, wondering if he could find more things in House that he might enjoy touching. _

_The firmness of House's chest, moving slow and deep as he breathed, did not repulse him. His fingers ghosted over the nubs of House's nipples and Wilson grew bold when House failed to stir. Wilson sat back down, perched sideways so that his thigh rested along House's back, and he touched the side of House's face again. Even the stubble seemed softer somehow, less abrasive. Wilson leaned down and rubbed his own cheek against it, just to learn what it felt like. It was pleasant, in a way – that scratchiness. He inhaled and reflected that a sleepy House smelled pretty good, like comfortable pajamas and fabric softener, and a twilight summer on a sun-warmed porch. _

_A breath rumbled from House's chest and he sighed without waking, turning into Wilson's touch just enough to spur him on. Wilson pressed his lips to the corner of House's mouth, his eyes lidded, then moved to place another kiss on House's jaw. He discovered his hand rubbing lightly over House's chest and didn't bother to stop it. House would never know if Wilson showed a little affection; he was too hopped up on morphine at the moment. _

_Wilson slid his hand lower, gliding over ribs and then the soft planes of House's stomach yielded to his touch. He experimented with his mouth, running lips and tongue over House's jugular and tracing the curve of a tendon to a spot just behind House's ear. House shifted again as Wilson suckled, but not much._

_There was a moment when Wilson reflected on how wrong this was, but it passed. House had mucked up his night out yet again, and was it really wrong if he never found out? If a tree falls in the forest, and all that crap. He owed Wilson some sort of debt for years worth of ruined evenings, interrupted sleep, conned meals and instances of panic. For destroyed marriages and mishaps with police. What House didn't know couldn't hurt him. It couldn't hurt either of them._

_Wilson left off drawing circles around House's navel and ran his hand along the outside of House's leg. He turned so that he could comfortably reach House with both hands and tangled his left into House's hair. He dipped his right down past House's scar and rubbed firmly against House's inner thigh. House's legs were muscular despite being handicapped, but he was far from chiseled. There was a pleasant brand of softness there too, much like what Wilson might find on a woman. _

_He inched his hand higher, curious to know how he might react to the body of another man. His fingers coasted over the shapes of House's genitals, separated from Wilson by thin layers of cotton and flannel. He palmed them, then squeezed a bit. _

_House moaned at that, unconscious and thready and barely there, but the sound aroused Wilson. He turned his face into House's neck and closed his eyes, breathing in the slight musk of House's skin. Wilson left off playing with House's hair and pawed at himself through his suit pants, a bit surprised by the fullness he found there. With his right hand, he started lightly stroking House through his pajamas, wondering if the morphine would hamper any arousal on House's part, unconscious or not. A bit of an erection formed under his hand, but not much._

_It was enough for Wilson, though. Two hours ago, he never would have guessed that such a thing could turn him on, but it did. Maybe it was the secrecy or the forbiddenness that did it for him, or maybe it was House himself. Wilson didn't know and he didn't care. He wanted more. _

_Wilson climbed fully onto the bed and stretched out alongside House, spooning him. He dropped his right hand back to fondle House's groin, perversely hoping to coax more out of House than a half-hard cock, even through the drugs. Wilson propped himself up on his left elbow and rucked House's shirt out of the way so that he could slip his hand into House's sleep pants. When he wrapped his fingers around House's mostly flaccid penis, House shuddered and rustled the sheets as he instinctively parted his legs. _

_House's breath caught and so did Wilson's; he thought for a second that House would wake up at that, and he froze. All House did though was murmur something dreamy and settle down again, his lips parted a fraction against the pillow. Wilson smiled down at him and craned his neck to taste those lips while his hand worked House's length. It was fascinating, playing with another man's penis, feeling it respond to many of the same things that his own responded to – the pad of his thumb pressed firmly into the slit, a gentle kneading and a tease at the head. _

_While his hand concentrated at the task between House's legs, Wilson worked his mouth gently over House's, undaunted by the lack of reciprocation. He slipped his tongue inside to flick against teeth and gums. House sighed into his mouth, warm breath scented with the slight mal-odor of morphine by products secreted in the salivary glands. Wilson didn't mind, and he pressed his lips more firmly to House's, his breathing speeding up and falling off even as he exhaled through his nose. Wilson managed to locate House's tongue with his own and he nudged it. _

_House automatically swallowed, then grunted and tried to turn his face away. Wilson left off fondling him and grabbed his jaw to hold his mouth in place. House's brow furrowed and he made an inquisitive sound, but the morphine held him down. The attempt at resistance in the face of chemical restraint further enflamed Wilson. He got up on his knees and straddled House, which gave him better access to indulge his fancies. His fingers moved to clasp the back of House's neck, tilting his chin up so that Wilson could plunder his mouth without developing a crick. He felt House swallowing again and then a choked sort of moan whispered out from the spaces between their lips. Wilson ate it up, his teeth marking sharp nips all along House's mouth and jaw. _

_Wilson could feel the tip of his cock pressed against the zipper of his suit pants, surely leaking by now. The more he thought about what he was doing, the more it aroused him. He broke off and suckled House's throat instead. He wanted to leave marks but he didn't dare; House could never find out about this, which meant nothing could get left behind._

_House managed to murmur something that might have been Wilson's name, his brow furrowed and his eyes shut tight. Wilson bent his head and whispered soothing things in House's ear, delighted by the shivers that coursed through House's body. "You're dreaming. Just go back to sleep. It's okay."_

_Something akin to assent made its way out of House's throat and he sank back into the bed as if it were custom made to hold the shape of his body, pliant beneath Wilson's hands, at least for the time being. _

_Wilson took advantage of this moment and scooted down House's body so that he could pull down the flannel pants and boxers. House stirred again and folded into himself as Wilson exposed his genitals to the cool apartment air, but Wilson shushed him with a few low words and a gentle pat on his stomach. _

_Wilson's fingers drifted southward after House quieted, then he paused to examine the body before him in the diffuse light that crept in from the hallway. A sparse trail of chest hair snuck in a thin line down House's stomach and abdomen, ending in a dark nest of curled pubic hair. House was hard but not like Wilson, not leaking. It was simple, basic anatomy in House's case: stimulation leads to increased blood flow, resulting in an erection. Wilson, on the other hand,_ ached. _The danger inherent in his actions, in taking advantage of his drugged best friend, merely compounded it. He felt giddy, drunk on the power he wielded over House right now – something he never had. There was absolutely nothing that House could do to stop him. Even if he managed to struggle his way to consciousness, he wouldn't have the strength or the coordination to put up a fight. And in the morning, Wilson could just tell him that he'd experienced an opiate-driven nightmare or hypnagogic hallucination. Something innocuous, and House would buy it because it would make sense. _

_Wilson shifted off and rolled House over onto his back, ignoring the indignant squawk that this engendered. He resumed his previous position, knees pressed on either side of House's hips, and slipped his hand behind House's neck to better angle his head. House's lips were still moist and swollen from Wilson's earlier ministrations, and he shoved his tongue inside to enjoy to flavor of House's mouth again, his efforts more concerted as his confidence grew. He could feel House's chest expand and contract under the hand that he had braced against House's sternum. He also felt it when House started to squirm just a little bit, not really capable of much else. The sensation of movement against the insides of Wilson's thighs and along the underside of his groin caused Wilson to moan. The loud, wanton sound hit the bedroom walls and bounced back to assault his eardrums. _

_Something woke in House as that sound reached his sleeping ears. He tensed beneath Wilson and tried to turn his head away but Wilson held him fast. Though House could offer little in the way of resistance, Wilson grabbed one of his wrists and pinned it at shoulder level. He liked the idea behind it, the implication of force because nobody ever forced the great Gregory House to do anything against his will. Nobody except Wilson. _

_House made another noise, something like fear, but Wilson ignored it this time. He shifted to lick and suck along House's neck, leaving a wet trail as he moved down to House's collarbone. He almost bit there, _really _wanted to bite there, but he settled for simply baring his teeth and raking them lightly over House's skin. _

_House's respirations sped up enough that he could waken, but Wilson was far beyond deterrence by that point. He seized House's other wrist and pinned that one to the mattress too, careful not to bruise and more excited than he had ever been in his life. He rubbed himself against House's body, feverish with anticipation, and then forced himself to slow, to hold back. He stilled his hips though he kept his mouth pressed to House's throat, his eyes closed and his back arched so that his whole front lay flush against House. He breathed harshly, almost moaning on each exhale, relishing the texture and shape of the man beneath him. It was something like ecstasy, just straddling him in stillness, House's body trapped by drugs and Wilson's weight. _

_Once Wilson regained sufficient control of himself, he sat up and released House's wrists so that he could work his pants open. House's fingers twittered against the bedding; he stayed under, though he made soft, defiant sounds in the back of his throat. Wilson could picture his thoughts, could imagine him struggling to reach consciousness, aware that something was amiss but unable to react or protect himself. _

_He bent close to House's face again, inhaling his scent for a surreal moment before murmuring, "It's okay. Relax and go to sleep. I'm right here, House."  
_

_A thready string of nonsense escaped House on an exhale, but he sounded distressed._

"_Nothing's going to hurt you. Go to sleep."_

_House snuffed and then drifted into silence, his hands falling open as he relaxed again. Wilson smiled in the darkness to know that House trusted him so much, and finished opening his pants. He drew his slick cock out and shoved his pants and boxers down to mid thigh. Then he scooted back and worked House's legs apart so that he could kneel between. _

* * *

After staring Wilson down for a full minute, House glanced around as if to assure that other people were indeed present. Then he pushed off the wall and approached Wilson slowly, using his cane and his limp to mask his reluctance. Wilson panicked and buried his head in the file. If anyone could tell when he was lying, it was House, but Wilson had successfully lied to him before. House always made the same blunder when it came to finding Wilson out; every time he caught Wilson in a lie, he told Wilson how he figured it out, listing all of Wilson's tells as if to prove how smart he was, like a child craving praise for being clever. He probably never anticipated Wilson using this information against him.

Wilson glanced up as House approached, feigning disinterest even though his insides were clenched into coils of nervous energy, screaming at him to get out of this, to just run. "Hey, House."

"Wilson…"

Wilson stopped writing and tilted his head to look at him. He affected an impatient air and schooled his features, praying that House wouldn't see though it. "What? You okay?" He shifted and made a point of noticing the way House was standing. "I'm not writing you another script; you just got one Monday."

"No, that's…no. About last night…"

"I'm not having that argument again, House, and I don't care that you interrupted my date. It's done. Now go bother somebody else." Wilson turned back to his file and perused the medical history. House would expect irritation so Wilson shuffled his feet a bit and leaned against the counter.

"I, um…had a dream. You were in it."

Wilson pinched the bridge of his nose and grimaced as if he couldn't grasp the level of annoyance that House aspired to. His mind caterwauled, however, and he tried not to tremble as the anxiety tumbled through him and set his ulcers burning. "Really."

"More like a nightmare, actually."

Shitshitshit! "Why? Did I replace all your Playstation games with Leap Frog learners? Chop your piano up for kindling?" He shifted to face House, propped causally against the counter in a pose that said _I'm too busy to care but letting you ramble will get this over with faster than convincing you that I'm too busy to care_. "Well?"

* * *

_Wilson ran his hands up House's legs and then weighed House's cock in his hands. He liked the heaviness of it, warm and soft like every other bit of sleeping House, but more real. House twitched at the touch, a sluggish but definite flinch, and tossed his head to one side. He mumbled again. Wilson's fingers slid from House's penis but House moved to follow the gesture, probably against his will. Once he lost the sensation for good, his hips fell into the bedding again and he sighed. It was a puzzled sound. _

_Wilson reached into his back pocket and pulled out his wallet, staring at House the whole time, admiring the long curve of his neck and the way shadows pooled in the hollow of his throat. He fumbled about and found the condom without looking, then leaned forward to dump his wallet on the nightstand. House seemed to sense him looming and he said something incoherent as he grasped at the air hovering just above his shoulder. His fingers brushed Wilson's shirt and then closed over a handful of buttons and hem. The next mutter definitely contained Wilson's name but he seemed pleased this time, reassured. Wilson smiled again and stayed in that position long enough to rummage in the nightstand drawer and find a bottle of lubricant. _

_Wilson settled back on his haunches and House's hand fell back to the bedspread, his grasp too weak to keep hold of Wilson's shirt as he moved out of reach. There was a moment when Wilson was certain he had waken but it proved to be a trick of the light. House's chest rose and fell, calm as he had been before Wilson touched him. The snap of the lube cap made him twitch and turn his head a fraction, but it didn't rouse him. Wilson tore open the condom and rolled it on, then applied a generous amount of lube. He wanted to do this without leaving any evidence, which meant without hurting House. He almost regretted that necessity, but it would make things easier in the long run if House had no clue in the morning._

_After gathering all the spare pillows and making sure that the jostling of the bed hadn't affected House's slumber, Wilson crawled back between House's legs. He managed to lift House enough to stuff two of the pillows under House's ass. He put the others under House's knees to keep any weight or pressure off his joints. Then he popped the lube open again and coated his fingers. He had to prepare House well, or he risked drawing blood, which House would definitely notice. _

_The moment his cold fingers touched House down there, House flinched and clenched his hands in the bed sheets. He was definitely on the verge of waking but Wilson wasn't worried. He knew from past experience that House often had vivid nightmares when he passed out from a morphine injection; all Wilson had to do was play dumb and let House draw his own conclusions, if he remembered this at all. Chances were, even if he woke up in the middle of it, the memory wouldn't stick. _

_Wilson wasted no time shoving a finger inside and exploring. His eyes wandered to the ceiling out of habit acquired after years of conducting prostate checks. He automatically felt about for the small organ and reflected wryly that at least it was healthy. He nudged at it, his manner clinical until he felt House clench. He looked down just as House whimpered; Wilson could tell that he was trying to open his eyes, to figure out what was going on. Wilson crawled up the bed but left his finger where it was, slowly pumping it and edging House's prostate each time he pressed back in. He sprawled out half on top of House and carded his hair, his face right next to House's. "It's okay…shhh…you're okay. Just sleep, it's alright…"_

_A denial stuck in House's throat and he managed to crack his eyes open. They were glassy and lost, fixed on the ceiling though Wilson doubted he could actually see anything. Wilson watched him fight not to drift back off and decided to add a second finger, just to see what would happen._

_House gasped but he couldn't keep his eyes open. He managed to tangle his fingers in Wilson's shirt again, though, and he turned toward him as if seeking protection, probably guided by scent, the most basic of the five human senses. Wilson smiled and kissed his forehead, scissoring his fingers and wondering how House could miss noticing that, could fail to react. House grunted and mumbled a question, something like, "Wuz hapenin?"_

"_Nothing," Wilson cooed. "Go back to sleep."_

"_No nuthin…" He sounded like a petulant child, albeit a drunk one with a speech impediment. "Wils'n…wuderyoo doin?"_

"_Nothing. You're dreaming, House." Wilson purposefully angled his fingers and jabbed at House's prostate._

"Nnnn_…hhhh…no…_"

_Wilson paused long enough to slide a third finger in amongst the first two and continued stretching him open. House let go of Wilson's shirt and his hand sort of flopped in an uncoordinated effort to touch some other part of him. Wilson sat halfway up and grabbed at House's wrist, then held it tight against his chest. "Relax. You're okay, just calm down."_

"_s'not…funny…"_

"_Stop worrying. Everything's okay." Wilson deemed House ready and drew his fingers out, smiling indulgently at House's obvious sigh of relief. He let go of House's hand and moved back between his legs, then stretched out over top of him. House made a panicked sound and squirmed a bit under the unexpected weight, his breathing shallow, but Wilson easily held him in place. He pulled House's hands from his arms with minimal effort and pushed them over House's head, crossed at the wrists so that he could hold them down with one hand. He stroked House's stubbled cheek with his other hand, amused by the way House humphed and shied away before he furrowed his brow and turned back into the touch. _

_Wilson adjusted his lower half until the tip of his penis pressed against House's opening. Then he looked down at House's face again. Slits of blue showed, wells of confusion and color that seemed too bright in the dark room. House fought to focus on Wilson's face but Wilson chose that moment to angle his hips and breach him. _

_House's body twitched as much as it could under Wilson's weight and his eyes fell shut again, this time in shock. When Wilson pressed farther inside, House's throat bobbed as he swallowed, and then he let out a pained whine. Wilson stopped long enough to sooth him and talk him into a more relaxed state, which House submitted to because morphine made him malleable and Wilson would never hurt him. Then Wilson canted his pelvis and slid in the rest of the way._

_House flexed, elongating his body, and then gulped over a strangled sound of protest. He made a feeble attempt to free his hands but Wilson hardly needed to exert any pressure to keep them pinned against the mattress. He propped himself up on his free arm and pulled out almost all of the way, his body tingling in response to the heat of the incredibly tight space surrounding his throbbing cock. Then he took a breath and plunged back in._

_House whimpered again, barely conscious but more than capable of recognizing his position. His voice was still soft but it gained a measure of steadiness when he moaned, "Wilson?"_

"_I'm not hurting you. Just relax." He pulled back so that he could thrust yet again. _

_House squirmed and opened his eyes. He looked as stoned as he was, the whites bloodshot and watery, the lids raised no more than halfway, but it seemed that he had finally figured out what was going on. Wilson thrust again, a little harder, and House arched his head back. "Oooffffff…getoff….please…."_

_The plea just made Wilson want to hear more. He set his knees firmly against the mattress and dug his toes in, then began to thrust at a constant if languorous pace. His own respirations sped up from the exertion, and then even more when House gasped and cried out._

"_No! Wilson…Wilson, stop…" His voice was pitchy and soprano, and hardly audible over Wilson's heavy breathing. "I'm sorry…I called you…m'sorry…please, no…more…"_

_Wilson had never heard him sound so desperate, not even when his leg drove him to a ten on the pain scale and he screamed for drugs to make it stop. Wilson's pace increased and he lowered his head to the crook of House's neck, loving the fear and the sweat that he could smell there, percolating about House's hairline. "It's okay…_god_…you're okay."_

_House's breath hitched and he struggled to lift his legs, perhaps intending to kick Wilson. The drugs in his bloodstream left him too weak, however, and his chest heaved with the effort to move in spite of his deadened limbs. "Wilson…Wilson, please, please…_ngh!_ Please! Stop, please, stop…"_

"Fuck_, that's incredible." Wilson hunched over him, letting his full weight crush House's helpless form into the mattress. He ran his tongue along House's shoulder but refrained from sinking his teeth in._

"Wil_son!" House practically yelped that and then his breath caught and he let a sob escape. "Wake up…wake up, wake up…_please_…Wilson…"_

_Wilson grunted and his rhythm fell off for a few seconds. He managed to regain control of himself and raised his head to look at House's face. House had turned his head away and was blinking furiously at the wall, his eyes two pools of unshed tears that turned blue irises to crystal. He kept telling himself to wake up, his breathing ragged. At a particularly sharp thrust, House's back arched against the bed whether he wanted it to or not, and then he gulped in several fresh breaths and clamped his eyes shut. Wilson picked up the tempo, fascinated by the way tears leaked out from under House's lashes, how his adam's apple bobbed and the rest of his body convulsed, at the mercy of both Wilson and the drugs in his system. The sight of it, the sound of his voice as he continued begging alternately for Wilson to either stop or wake him up…it left Wilson aching, frenzied and craving release. _

_He curled forward and let go of House's wrists so that he could grab hold of his body for better leverage. He didn't worry about House fighting him; he could barely lift his arms, much less defend himself or hurt Wilson. Wilson could feel House's arousal pressed between them, though; could feel the hardness against his stomach each time he thrust. It left him giddy to know that he could not only force House to submit, but that he could force House to enjoy it too. Wilson slid a couple of inches lower and changed the angle of his thrusts so that he hit House's prostate hard each time he plowed back in. _

_House shuddered and tensed, his every breath constricted in his throat as he hiccupped and fought not to sob openly. "…Wilson…no…" Defeat seeped out from every angle of his voice, but he couldn't stop believing that Wilson would come to his senses, that this wasn't real, that his best friend wouldn't do this to him, wouldn't hurt him. "P-please…I'm so-orry. Wilson…Wilson-_hcmp_…stop…" Then his breath hitched one last time and his eyes fluttered shut, and the sight was beautiful and tinged with wetness that shone in the salty tracks on House's cheeks, frosting his stubble in the darkness. _

_Wilson let out one last groan and then his body went rigid with pleasure. He thrust into House a few more times, a staccato motion as he emptied himself and his body whited out with bliss. He felt the flush spread through his body, a wave of heat made sweeter by the sound of House giving in too, and then the edge passed and Wilson stilled, tumbling down in the wake of the high to collapse on top of his best friend. _

_Now that the act was done, Wilson felt his reason sink back in. He blinked a few times, his head resting on House's shoulder, and listened to the sound of House silently crying, his chest stuttering and his fingers clenched loosely on the sleeves of Wilson's shirt. He was still mumbling, trying to convince himself to wake up. A coldness crept through Wilson's bones and he carefully lifted off to get a good look at what he'd done. As soon as Wilson climbed off, House pulled himself into a clumsy ball, still pumped full of morphine and heavy-limbed. The drugs made him weak, made it possible for him to break down like this. Wilson told himself that House was still mostly out of it, that it was just the morphine. No way had he hurt him that badly, and beside – House had come too. It had been pleasurable for both of them. No, it was just the drugs that made him cry like that. _

_Wilson took the condom off and tied it, but put it in his pocket to dispose of elsewhere. Then he pulled his pants back up and buckled his belt, setting his appearance to rights. He was pretty sure that House didn't look at him the whole time, though he had quieted and may have fallen under again. Just in case he hadn't, Wilson padded out to the living room and drew up a few more cc's of morphine. When he returned to the bedroom, House was in the process of trying to drag himself upright, but he had no coordination and could barely hold his eyes open. Wilson rushed forward and shoved him back down, surprised by the way House cringed and tried to block him. _

_No words were necessary at this point. Wilson held the needle in his teeth and forced House over onto his stomach, then held him there with his knee pressed into the small of House's back. House choked out a plea for no more as Wilson jabbed the needle into his gluteus and pushed it slowly in. He didn't want to leave a second tract mark on House's arm because House would notice it right away; he needed the mark to be somewhere House couldn't see. The morphine took effect quickly and House settled back into a deep sleep, his breathing evening out while Wilson monitored his pulse and checked for bleeding. There was nothing; he had been careful, after all. Wilson pulled his boxers and sleep pants back up and then left him alone to dispose of the sharp and get something to drink; he was parched._

_An hour later, Wilson came back in and shook House awake, his voice panicked and urgent. House jerked and yelped, startled and disoriented. "Thank god," Wilson exclaimed. "You scared the shit out of me – I thought you were dying in here. That must have been a hell of a dream."_

_House blinked at him, fuzzy with sleep and drugs and completely bewildered by Wilson's behavior. His eyes flickered over random objects in the room, and then he looked down at himself. _

_Wilson looked down too and then pretended to be embarrassed. "It's, um…it's nothing…perfectly, you know…natural. We'll just…get you into the shower…pretend it never happened."_

_Wilson scrubbed any lingering evidence away under the guise of concerned and chronically helpful friend. Then he helped House maneuver his sluggish limbs into fresh clothes and poured his morphine addled body back into bed, on fresh sheets. He took all of the soiled laundry to the washing machine and ran it through a hot cycle even though the red sheets would bleed, then transferred the entire mess to the dryer. Once he confirmed that House was safely ensconced in his bed, covered in clean blankets and breathing at an acceptable rate, Wilson gathered his things and left. He dropped the used condom into a trash can a block away. Nothing left. And House would never know._

* * *

Wilson glared at him expectantly, knowing that House would never admit the content of the dream; knowing that his intent stare was a ploy meant to unsettle Wilson enough that he would blab a confession all on his own. Except that Wilson didn't. He just returned that gaze, level and blank, certain that if he could just play dumb for long enough, House would dismiss the entire thing as opium dreams and walk away. And he did dismiss it, but he frowned first, ducking his head to peer at Wilson from under wary brows. And as he walked away, he glanced back once, his expression guarded. He knew. He remembered and he knew it wasn't a dream, but he couldn't be certain without proof, and he trusted Wilson.

Nothing changed between them. They ate lunch, they traded barbs, they ordered Chinese and watched B movies. It was like nothing happened, like House didn't suspect the truth. Wilson was House's best friend, his only friend, and if House tended to watch him a bit more closely, or sit a little bit farther apart on the couch, well…it didn't mean anything. Wilson would never hurt him, after all; Wilson never hurt anybody on purpose.

But the next time House needed help in the middle of the night, he called Chase.


	2. Chapter 2

Chase looked up from his laptop for the fourth time in half an hour as he heard House start to mumble again in the next room. The last three times, Chase had gone in to shake him until he woke up enough to realize he was dreaming and safe in his bed. This time, Chase stayed on the couch in House's living room and returned to his perusal of the latest issue of JAMA online. He still couldn't figure out what he was doing here, beyond the obvious: House had called at eleven at night and asked Chase to come over, and Chase had found him in his living room chair, halfway passed out from the breakthrough pain alone.

That in itself was not unusual, but House only called _him_ for these sorts of things when Wilson was away at a conference. As far as Chase knew, Wilson was sleeping peacefully tonight in his own apartment. He had asked House about it as he dragged him, happily loaded with a soothing dose of morphine, to his bedroom. House had slurred out something like _Wilson might be busy_. And then Chase had dumped him on the bed and lifted his legs up after him, and House had fluttered off to sleep, fully clothed. Chase had simply pulled his sneakers off and thrown a blanket over him. Then he had settled in on the couch for the night, reluctant to leave House alone after administering a respiratory depressant.

House's mumbling grew louder over the course of the next minute, and Chase finally sighed, setting his laptop aside. As he padded through House's apartment, he realized that House was actually talking this time. Chase made out a clear exhortation to wake up, and then another, and then House said something about Wilson and then told himself to wake up again.

Chase quickened his steps and paused in the bedroom doorway to peer through the murk at House's form shifting restlessly, though minimally thanks to the morphine, beneath his comforter. He didn't wake him up this time; he just listened. And the more he listened, the colder he got, until he couldn't listen anymore.

"House!" Chase hurried forward and seized House's shoulders in a rough grip. "You're having a nightmare. Wake up now." He shook his former boss and repeated, "Wake up!"

House jerked awake but his eyes only stayed open for a second. He tensed in a lazy sort of drugged manner, and then mumbled Wilson's name.

"Wilson's not here," Chase replied. "It's me. Chase."

"Oh…" House's breathing evened out and he sank into the covers, calm again. "tha's good."

Chase waited until he slipped under again, breathing evenly, then tiptoed out. He wished he hadn't stopped to listen. What the hell sort of thing would make a man dream something like that? He actually felt sorry for House, but he would never let House know that he had pieced together the content of that nightmare. _No one_ would ever know about that nightmare; Chase resolved to forget it as soon as possible.

That proved more difficult than Chase had thought it would be. Ten minutes passed in silence, and then Chase started on the couch at the sound of House begging to wake up. Chase dumped his laptop on the cushion beside him and stumbled to his feet, wiping inadvertent sleep from his face as he rushed down the hall again. He wasted no time in jostling House awake, and then sat on the edge of his bed, monitoring his pulse as an excuse to linger a little longer.

Chase wanted to leave House to his slumber, but he hesitated. Having opium-driven nightmares was common, but House had been having the _same_ nightmare, over and over, all night. Chase didn't want to admit that he cared what happened to House, but he did. Chase's mind wandered back to a scene in House's office, after Rowan had walked out. House had started to tell him something about hating one's father, and Chase had cut him off to rail at him about how it hurt less to simply not care. It had taken him months to realize that House had been trying to say something kind to him, and that Chase had quashed that attempt, pretty much for good.

He had felt guilty ever since, though he wasn't sure why. He only knew that House didn't care about much either; as Chase had said, it hurt less not to. House obviously knew that. Hearing such a thing on Chase's lips had simply made him pretend not to care about Chase either. Chase knew better; he had seen the flicker of hurt in House's eyes when Chase had rebuffed his attempt at empathy. Ever since, Chase had wanted to find a way to make it up to him because he knew that House wasn't such a bad guy. House just hid it well.

"House?" Chase took hold of House's wrist before he could drift all the way off again. "Why didn't you call Wilson?"

House managed to raise his heavy lids, his eyes painfully blue around constricted pupils. He almost focused on Chase, and then his gaze flickered a bit and his eyes slid shut. Chase figured he hadn't understood the question, was too far gone, but then House slurred, "Too many sharps."

Chase's brows lowered and he glanced about, confused. "House? Are you still with me?"

"Still…go'way."

Chase raised his voice to better penetrate the drug haze. "What do you mean, too many sharps?"

House's face twitched and he turned his head away.

"House?"

Even chock full of morphine, House could still snark. "Wha's with you? M'tired."

"Tell me about the sharps and I'll leave you alone."

House sighed, put-upon, but it was a groggy sigh. He probably didn't even realize that he was still awake at this point. Otherwise, Chase doubted he would have responded as he did. "I only 'member I used four, an' Wils'n used two. But there's seven."

Chase watched him fall back into unconsciousness and then levered himself off the bed. He padded into the kitchen and opened the cupboards under the sink, where House kept a big glass pickle jar to hold used needles. There were eight in there: the one Chase had used a few hours ago, the six that House remembered using, and another. Chase set the jar on the kitchen island and stared at it for several minutes. No way. There was no way Wilson would do that.

From the other end of the apartment, House started chanting _wake up_. Chase gave the jar one last incredulous glance and then went to wake him up.

* * *

The next morning, Chase found Wilson in his office. He walked in without preamble and set the pickle jar firmly down on the edge of Wilson's desk. Wilson gave both the jar and Chase a bewildered look.

Chase treated him to a glare of pure flint. "You should have taken the second needle with you." He waited just long enough for the realization to hit, and then he turned and walked out.

* * *

Even after he signed out of PPTH and made his way to the car, Wilson's mind continued to reel. He had no idea what had happened, why House would confide in Chase of all people. Hell, Wilson didn't even know what House had told him. One thing was for certain: House would never have let Chase confront Wilson, not by choice, and certainly not on his behalf. So Chase must have come of his own accord, and House must not have known. That still left the question: What, exactly, did House know? And how could Chase have come to the correct conclusion without House realizing it?

There was still time to control the situation before it hit a tailspin. He needed to talk to House, find out what he remembered and how much he actually knew for sure. Maybe he could still convince House that it was a dream. Hell – maybe House still believed that himself. They had spoken a few times over the course of the day and House hadn't acted as if he knew about Chase's visit. If that were the case, it made Wilson's job easy. He just had to tattle on Chase, get House's dander up and sic him on the intensivist with all of his ire and misplaced shame to bear. Chase would back down if House yelled at him – he didn't fight back against House's temper; he took punches with stoicism, walked out when he was fired, endured verbal abuse and followed orders with all the devotion of a natural-born yes-man. He didn't stand up to House.

The drive to 221B took exactly twenty-two minutes. Wilson timed it by his dashboard clock. He could see the lights on in House's apartment and parked his car by the front door. A few deep breaths calmed his nerves enough for him to exit the car, but he stood by the open car door and stared at the lighted windows for a few seconds more. He could do this. House couldn't know the truth; he wouldn't stay silent if he did, and mere suspicion, while venomous, had never been sufficient for House, not where Wilson was concerned. All he had to do was convince House that he was mistaken. For anyone else, that would be a daunting task. For Wilson…it was simply difficult. Not impossible. House forgave him everything, let him have every benefit of every doubt. He would believe anything Wilson told him about that night two weeks ago because he _wanted_ to. Because he needed his friend more than he needed the truth.

Wilson squared his shoulders and strode across the sidewalk, into House's building. He could hear Kashmir playing all the way from the lobby by the mailboxes. House had been obsessing over Led Zeppelin lately; it must have been his flavor of the month. Any day now, Wilson would step into the lobby to the sound of House playing guitar riffs over the racket of his stereo, imitating the music. And then after that, House would start to improvise his own variations, and from there, it would take less than two days for him to grow bored with the entire exercise. Until then, Wilson figured he should get used to Led Zeppelin. There were worse bands to have to listen to incessantly.

Instead of pounding on House's apartment door, Wilson let himself in and shuffled over to turn the stereo off. House started when the music stopped and opened his eyes where he laid sprawled all over the couch with his feet hanging off the end. "Wilson. Hey."

Wilson omitted a proper greeting and faced House with his hands on his hips. He had to stay on the offensive or House would doubt his honesty. The second he started making excuses or rationalizing, House would be all over him. "What the hell did you tell Chase?"

House rose up on his elbows to better take in Wilson's posture. "About what?"

"He brought me a jar full of your used needles. What the hell does he think I did?"

House's brows drew down between his eyes and he picked his leg up so that he could swing around and put his feet on the floor. "He brought you _my_ jar? From under the sink?" He shrugged a shoulder in the general direction of the kitchen.

Wilson let himself appear exasperated and nodded vigorously. On the inside, he trembled. He had to maintain the façade. He couldn't crack even the slightest bit. "Yeah. What did you tell him?"

"I didn't tell him anything." House looked down, though, and Wilson caught the hint of pink showing near House's cheekbones. Embarrassment. That was good for Wilson. "He didn't explain?"

"No, he seemed to think he didn't need to. He just said I should have taken the second syringe with me, whatever the hell that means. Was he over here last night?"

House nodded slowly and chewed the inside of his cheek. "I called him. Didn't want to bother you again."

Okay…now came the delicate part. Wilson had to bring up "the" night without making House suspicious. That meant perfect innocence on his face and a calculated curiosity in his voice. No patronization, several hints of perplexed reasoning, and a healthy dose of flabbergasted disbelief. "You called him? For you're leg?" Wilson stepped closer and noted with satisfaction that House ducked his head lower instead of studying Wilson's behavior. "This isn't…this doesn't have something to do with the nightmare you had before. Does it? House?"

"It's nothing. It has nothing to – "

"You're lying."

House's eyes flew up to Wilson's face, naked with a mixture of surprise and shame. Good. Wilson had caught him off guard, put him on the defensive. He was practically home free.

"House. Spill it. You were going to tell me before, weren't you? In the clinic?"

House's eyes wandered away and he rubbed absently at his leg. "Maybe. I hadn't decided."

Wilson rocked on his feet a few times and glared up at the ceiling because he knew that House was watching his body language for tells. Maybe not consciously, but House didn't need to think about it; reading people came naturally to him. "You thought it was real. Whatever it was, you thought it actually happened. That's why you confronted me in the clinic – to find out if I'd confess." Wilson gazed back down and was actually disappointed that House wasn't looking at him at all. His affectations were a wasted effort. "House."

The name came out sharper than Wilson intended, but House gave a gratifying flinch. "It just…it was so…vivid."

Wilson infused a hint of irritation and hurt feelings into his voice. "Morphine does that to people. You know that."

"Yeah."

House sounded so subdued, so defeated that Wilson felt bad for grilling him like this. He relented with a sigh and stepped past House to sit down on the next cushion. He had done it, and he knew it. If House wasn't fighting back now, he never would. Wilson could ask pretty much anything now, and it wouldn't raise any red flags. "So…what exactly did you dream?"

Wilson didn't actually expect him to admit it, but House surprised him. He put a spin on it, though, to make himself seem less vulnerable in the story. Typical House. "I dreamed we had sex."

"We _what_?" Wilson turned his head sharply, fighting to look shocked and appalled, plus suspicious that House might be pulling his leg. It half aroused him to hear House say it out loud, though. He fought to control himself. "_Why_? Why would you dream – "

"How the hell should I know?" House demanded. He slid over toward the arm of the couch, probably without realizing that he was backing off, cornering himself in the couch to mirror feeling cornered in the conversation. "I was high. You kept talking to me." He paused for a second. "You _were_ talking to me, right?"

"I came in a few times," Wilson replied. "You kept mumbling and telling me to wake you up. I thought something was wrong. And then…well." He gestured to House's lap to remind him that he had "enjoyed" his delusions a little too much. "I gave you another quarter dose after we cleaned the place up. You needed to sleep."

"You gave me another dose?"

Wilson peered over at him, inwardly dancing at the hope that he heard in House's voice. "Yeah. Why?"

House gave an explosive exhale and laughed to himself in obvious relief. "Never mind. It doesn't matter."

Wilson made sure to sound as if he doubted House's sanity at the moment. "Okay. So, we're good?"

House nodded. "Chase is an idiot. I must have dreamed it again and he got the wrong idea."

"What idea? That I raped you or something?"

House laughed again, as close to glee as he ever got, but a nervous edge lingered. It was probably more out of fear that Wilson would figure out the real events of his dream than anything else. "Apparently."

"I think I should be insulted," Wilson muttered.

"Don't sweat it." House labored to his feet and limped around the couch on his way to the kitchen. "Everybody figures you're secretly evil; nobody could be that nice _and_ well-adjusted at the same time."

Wilson rolled his eyes and glared over his shoulder as House lumbered past. "Jerk." He turned back to check the time on House's DVD player. Actually, it was Wilson's DVD player from when he had lived here three years ago, but they had both silently agreed not to point that out to one another. "I'm hungry. Come with?"

House pulled his head out of the refrigerator and contemplated the unopened beer bottle he had just grabbed. He shrugged and put it back. "Sure. You're buying."

"I'm always buying," Wilson grumbled. "Since when does it require an announcement?"

"Since you owe me for scaring the crap out of me," House said. He was more serious than anything else for a second.

Wilson blinked a few times and shoved down the acid in his stomach. "Wait. What?"

The sober moment passed and House smirked, every ounce of his trademark sarcasm back in full force. "If you didn't care so much, you wouldn't have tried to say nice things to me while I was practically comatose on morphine, and then your sweet dulcet tones wouldn't have made me think that I had sex with my best male friend."

Wilson forced himself to laugh and take it in stride, then climbed to his feet. "Fine. Dinner's on me as punishment for my bleeding heart."

---TBC


	3. Chapter 3

House was completely smashed by the time the cab dropped them back off at House's apartment. Wilson had been drinking too, but not nearly as much as House. They stumbled over to the couch and plopped down, one after the other, giggling the way they had five years ago at Christmas, the first Christmas after House had returned to work at PPTH. Neither of them had really laughed like that since. It felt good.

Wilson kind of needed to pee, but he didn't feel like getting up yet. It was just a nagging, gonna-happen-eventually feeling of fullness in his bladder. Plus, as long as the alcohol was still in his system, he felt invincible. "So, I was thinking," he said.

House grunted and opened his eyes, sleepy with bourbon and good food. "Musta hurt."

Wilson snorted and ignored the comment. "That dream you had. You were so high you could've sweat morphine, but you still came." He rolled his head along the back of the couch to look at House's profile beside him. "You liked having sex with me."

House had frozen on the couch beside him, his eyes trained blearily on the blank television, but he looked a whole lot more sober than he had thirty seconds ago. "It was just a dream, Wilson. It didn't mean anything."

"You sure?" Wilson let his head rest against the back of the couch and closed his eyes, his expression dreamy. He felt like he was floating in a slowly revolving room that smelled like House. The scent alone brought back a stark memory of burying his face against House's neck, his body flush with heat and pleasure. "I think we should try it." When the silence stretched too long, Wilson lifted his head to find House staring at him, his lips parted slightly. "What? You got off on it. Why not give it a shot?"

"I'm not gay," House stated unequivocally. "Neither are you."

Wilson shrugged. "Doesn't matter. It's just sex."

"I'm not attracted to you," House insisted.

"Fine, then call it a bet." Wilson sat up, a bit wobbly but otherwise okay. "I bet I can get you off again." He thought over those words and then cringed at his blunder. At least he could blame it on drunken stupidity. "Well, not again. But like before. In the dream."

"A bet," House echoed, his words careful. "How drunk are you?"

"Drunk enough," Wilson replied without hesitation. "You?"

House looked away, his eyes clear in the dim light. He blinked a few times, then shook his head. "No. Sleep it off, Wilson."

Wilson shook his head to clear it. House had turned him down? Nobody ever turned him down. "Why not?"

"It's not a good idea." House braced his cane on the floor and started to stand up.

Wilson grabbed his arm and House dropped back onto the cushions, looking wary. "Okay, wait. How about this." Wilson scooted forward and reached for the bottle of Maker's Mark that had taken up permanent residence on House's coffee table since his father's funeral. "You take this." He shoved the bottle into House's hands and took his cane. "Take a few swigs. Okay?"

"Wilson, there isn't enough alcohol – "

"Just do it." Wilson leaned the cane against the coffee table out of House's reach, then slid off the edge of the couch and insinuated himself on his knees between House's legs.

House backed as far into the cushions as he could, the bourbon held to his chest like a talisman. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Winning a bet." Wilson reached for House's belt.

"I didn't bet," House snapped, swatting at Wilson's hands. "Cut it out. You're drunk."

"You are too," Wilson pointed out. Instead of going for the belt again, Wilson grabbed the bourbon and twisted the cap off, then handed it back. "Drink that." Then he latched his fingers onto House's belt and yanked it open.

House cringed and tried to edge away. "Wilson, come on. This isn't funny."

"Just relax."

House grabbed one of his hands and pulled it off. "No. It's late, you're not thinking straight, and – _nnngh!_" He broke off because Wilson had just grabbed his crotch through the denim of his jeans. "Wilson!"

Wilson disentangled his other hand and flicked open House's jeans without letting go. "You'll like it. Quit whining."

"Shit…Are you nuts?" He squirmed but his breathing had fallen off and Wilson could feel the firmness growing beneath his hand.

Wilson pulled down the zipper and snaked a hand inside House's boxers, replacing his outer grip with flesh-on-flesh. He remembered this feeling, this heaviness rapidly filling the palm of his hand. House's breath caught and Wilson watched his stomach clench as he grunted in shock and arousal. "See? It's good, right?"

"It's…Wilson, I don't want to do this." House shivered and fought to inhale as his breath caught. "Really."

Wilson ignored him and concentrated on working his fumbling fingers at the hem of House's boxers. He heard the bourbon slosh as House took a sip after all, and smiled to himself. A hand appeared on Wilson's wrist, but House didn't try to pry him off again. He just squeezed. "You're okay," Wilson told him, and made a fist around House's cock. "Stop worrying."

House exhaled, long and slow, and slid his butt forward on the couch, giving Wilson more access. "This is weird," he said, but he couldn't hide the lust in his voice.

"Nothing bad will happen." Wilson started a lazy rhythm on his cock, amused by House's hand following the movement, since he wouldn't let go of Wilson's wrist.

The bourbon slapped the insides of the bottle as House tipped it to his mouth again. He was a mass of tension and angles, all quivering muscles as Wilson stroked him. But House couldn't help himself. He let his head tip back on the couch and rested the bourbon on the cushion next to him, his fingers white around the neck of the bottle. Wilson ran his free hand up House's left leg and caressed his hip. House jerked away from his touch but didn't protest. He let Wilson's fingers crawl up under his shirt and glide over the smooth plane of his stomach. His eyes were shut tight, however, his mouth drawn into a grim line. Though his body responded as expected, he appeared pained, and his respiration bordered on hyperventilation.

"House? You're gonna pass out if you don't relax."

"Sorry," he gasped, and then he grunted as Wilson thumbed his tip, spreading the precum that had formed there. His lower body twitched and he fought to control his breathing, tightening his grip on Wilson's wrist.

Wilson gripped House's cock more firmly and sped up just a bit. His other hand wandered up to House's chest and he pinched a nipple hard enough to make House jump and bite his lip. House's cock swelled in Wilson's hand but House himself simply started to shake, his breath coming in harsh spurts though his nose. Wilson could tell that he didn't want to make any noise, as if afraid to give Wilson any incentive to continue. Wilson's own erection filled out at that and he squirmed to rub himself against the inside of his pants.

Wilson drew his hand out of House's shirt and reached up to touch his face. House flinched when the backs of Wilson's fingers brushed his cheek. His hips betrayed him, though, and he gave a little thrust forward into Wilson's hand. His breathing turned even more erratic and he uttered something that would have sounded like a sob, had he not thrust again at the same time.

"Tell me about it," Wilson said.

House started and opened his eyes, cloudy with arousal and a rather large measure of fear. "What?"

"Your dream," Wilson clarified, rising up on his knees. He slid his right hand into House's jeans as well, and worked around to grip his ass. House's nostrils flared as Wilson's fingertips brushed in against his opening. "Tell me about it. How did it feel?"

"Oh god." House gulped in a desperate breath and then shuddered. "You did. You did it."

Wilson's expression darkened. "You liked it. You like this too." He squeezed the hardened member in his hand and House whimpered. "Tell me how it felt."

House tugged at Wilson's hand, trying to get him to let go of his cock. "You're sick," he gasped.

"So are you." Wilson pulled his right hand from House's jeans and yanked the hand from his wrist so that he could keep going. "You enjoy this."

"No, I don't," House insisted, his voice strained. He tried to pull his hand from Wilson's grasp, but Wilson pinned it against the couch cushion.

"Oh, please." Wilson swirled his wrist and House bucked. "See? You're practically begging for it."

"No, I'm not," House moaned, but he kept thrusting into Wilson's hand, his face a miasma of mixed emotions. "Nngh! Wilson, just…just…I want to talk about it."

"So do I," Wilson replied, eagerly rubbing his front against the couch as House bucked and squirmed against his palm. "Tell me what it felt like before."

"No, I mean this. I want to talk about this before…just stop for a minute."

Wilson shook his head even though House wasn't looking at him. "Were you scared?"

"_Hhhhhuh_…yes." He licked his lips and clawed at the couch cushion with the hand that Wilson was holding down. "Wilson…"

"Tell me." Wilson leaned up to run his mouth over House's jaw, further aroused when House turned his face away and pressed himself back into the couch.

"I was…I didn't know…what was going on…at first." His voice turned pitchy and he arched his back as Wilson continued stroking into his thrusts.

"Yes." Wilson bent his head into House's neck and mouthed a line down to his shoulder. He drew in a stuttering breath tinged with the sweet tang of House's fevered skin, then bit down as he had wanted to the first time. He relished the taste and bared his teeth around House's skin as House's body convulsed. Wilson laved the bruised area with tongue and kisses before muttering, "What else?" near House's ear. "What else did you feel?"

"Oh god…I don't…know." House moaned helplessly, and Wilson drank in the confusion and fear that came out with it.

"Tell me how much you liked it."

House swallowed thickly and another sob worked its way out on the heels of a hitched breath. "I didn't. Wilson, I didn't. Please, I want to talk now."

"We are talking." Wilson nosed at House's hairline and followed him as he shied. "What was it like? Having me fill you?"

"God, no. Please, Wilson…don't make me…please…"

"Tell me what it was like," Wilson insisted, his voice hardening. He squeezed House's cock until he knew it would hurt. "Quit lying and tell me how much you liked it."

House cried out and writhed back into the couch. He shook his head, and then cringed when he felt Wilson's mouth on his neck again. "I'm not lying. Wilson, for Christ's sake, stop."

"You don't believe in Christ," Wilson pointed out. He nipped at the soft flesh over House's jugular and moved his hand faster on House's cock. "Just tell me," he crooned. "Tell me how much you want it again. How good it felt. How I made you come."

"_Nnnn-_no!" House was breathing hard enough that he would have seen spots if he had dared to open his eyes. He practically yelped when Wilson bit his collarbone, and then his entire body went rigid.

Wilson let go of House's wrist and grabbed his hair, crashing their lips together. He shoved his tongue past House's lips and swallowed every grunt, every whimper that House made as he came. He breathed in the stale breath that poured from House's lungs and pressed their mouths together so hard that Wilson felt House's teeth cut his upper lip. He kept stroking as House's hips bucked, hot ejaculate flowing over his hand in spite of House's quiet sounds of despair.

The feel of House coming into his hand, of his body spasming in the throes of it, drove Wilson to a frenzy of lust and need. The friction of his cock against the couch and the inside of his pants sent him over the edge too. He gasped and buried his face in the hair at the nape of House's neck, shamelessly humping the couch. He let go of House's spent cock and clutched his body instead, desperate for contact as he shuddered through wave after wave of pleasure. Finally, the intensity tapered off and Wilson stilled, though he remained pressed up against House's body, both of them panting and smelling of sex and perspiration. House wasn't resisting anymore and Wilson eventually pulled back.

As soon as Wilson's hands left him, House raised the bourbon bottle and took as large a swig as he could manage in one swallow. He coughed afterwards and refused to look at Wilson even when Wilson stood up and moved into his line of sight. Undeterred, Wilson resumed his seat next to House and continued basking in the heady afterglow. "See? I told you you'd like it."

House merely settled against the back of the couch and shut his eyes with the bottle of bourbon perched on his left leg.

--TBC


	4. Chapter 4

Wilson woke up to sunshine streaming in through House's front window, stabbing him right where his hangover drove the spikes in behind his eyes. He squinted and then froze on the couch when he noticed House tucked into the other corner, his head pillowed on the arm rest and an empty bottle of bourbon cradled to his chest. Shit. Did he…? Yeah. Wilson squirmed at the stickiness in his boxers. "Oh, no. No…crap. House?"

House mumbled and cracked open bloodshot eyes. He immediately squinched them again and let the Maker's Mark bottle tumble onto the floor. "Fuck. What happ'n'd?"

Shit – he had been home free. What the hell had he been thinking? God, House was going to kill him. Or turn him in. Or…Wilson dipped his head and studied House's body language as he carefully unfolded himself and lowered his bad leg to the floor. Was Wilson that lucky? Could House have been drunk enough to forget? "I don't remember."

"Mmm." House gingerly dropped his head into his hands and then seemed to recall that he had pills for that sort of thing. He dug around in his pockets until he found the amber bottle but his fingers kept sliding on the cap.

Wilson reached forward to take the pills and House didn't even bat an eye at the proximity. "I'm borrowing one of these," Wilson told him once he got the cap off.

"Whatever." House scrubbed the sleep from his face and then lowered his hands when Wilson shook the pill bottle at him. His hand froze in reaching for it and his brows fell into a v between his eyes. He frowned at Wilson's outstretched hand and then his eyes tracked across the couch to his cane, out of reach near Wilson's leg. After lingering there, he glanced at the bourbon bottle near his feet. His hand wavered near Wilson's and then he shook himself. He announced, "I'm still drunk," as he finally accepted the pill bottle.

Wilson let the amber bottle slide off his fingertips and watched as House dry swallowed two of the chalky capsules. House grimaced at the taste and jerked his head to one side as he swallowed, oblivious to Wilson's uneasy stare.

House glanced up, eyed his cane again, and then made a grabby-hand at it. "Gimme."

Wilson passed his cane over. "Um…House?"

"Gonna be late," House replied. He pulled himself to his feet with the help of his cane and the arm of the couch, then hobbled toward the front door. "You just…do whatever. Doesn't matter."

Wilson shot to his feet and hurried to block the front door. "You can't drive if you're still drunk."

"Get out of my way."

"You haven't even showered. And you _need _a shower," Wilson added, frantic to keep him there. "You still smell like a cheap bar."

"I'll shower at the hospital. Move."

"House – "

"Wilson, get the fuck out of the way."

House hadn't yelled. His voice had been dangerous in its softness, and that was somehow worse for Wilson to hear. They stood toe-to-toe, squared off in front of the door; Wilson glanced away first. He couldn't bear the steel in House's expression. Reluctantly, he slid out from between House and the door and listened to him leave, slamming it behind him hard enough that Wilson cringed. What the hell was he supposed to do now?

* * *

Chase paused on his way into the hospital when he noticed House sitting on a bench, half covered in snow, just staring out into the parking lot. He glanced into the main lobby, torn between going inside where it was warm and braving what would likely be House's mercurial temper. In the end, he sighed, glared at an absent god, and strode over to House's bench. "Hey."

House blinked and looked up, his face blank. Then he started as if just recognizing Chase. "Chase. Thought you were on the graveyard shift."

"I was, but Cameron got tired of spending the evenings alone. Cuddy let me switch." Chase glanced away for a second and then sat down. "What, no sarcasm? No bad jokes about Cameron having me by the balls, or – "

"Wilson said you talked to him."

Chase clamped his mouth shut and followed the subject change as easily as he could. "We work in the same hospital. I talk to him all the time."

House looked down, tapping slushy patterns between his feet while his eyebrows climbed toward his hairline. "About me?"

"Oh." There was no point denying it. "Look, I won't tell anyone. It's none of my business. I just thought…"

House nodded, unusually quiet and unresponsive. "Yeah. Thanks."

Chase studied him for a second, watching as House tried to appear casual and bounce his cane like he always did. "Is everything okay?"

"It's fine," House averred, though it clearly wasn't. "Everything's fine. Nothing happened."

Chase digested that for a moment, but couldn't think of a response. From House's manner, something _did_ happen. Probably something that Chase could have done without knowing, but he was in the thick of it now. He had to stay involved. "Um."

"I don't want you sticking your nose in my life. Okay? And leave Wilson alone." House's cane tapped a rapid staccato on the ground, and then he returned to himself abruptly. "So glad we talked."

Chase sat frozen on the bench as House levered himself upright and gimped in long strides toward the front entrance. Cold had nothing to do with his immobility. He watched as Wilson appeared from between cars in the parking lot, spotted House, and then ran to catch up. They both paused before going inside, shoulder-to-shoulder as they always walked. It looked like any other day, the two of them lumbering inside, matched gaits and a too-familiar closeness. Chase watched them until they disappeared through the hospital doors. Something was wrong, something more than he had thought when he dropped the sharps jar off in Wilson's office, and he had no idea what to do about it.

* * *

"I was drunk."

House nodded and kept walking, ice and salt crunching underfoot as he picked his way forward. "I know."

Wilson had to hurry to keep up; House obviously didn't want to talk to him. "House, I am _so_ sorry."

"I know." The automatic doors swung open and House preceded him into the main lobby.

"Well…say something! Something else." Wilson caught at his arm before they reached the nurse's station, before they were close enough for someone to overhear. "I don't even have an excuse. I just…I don't know. I don't what I was thinking. I'm just…I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry."

House nodded, impassive to the point of frightening Wilson. "I know." He pulled his arm from Wilson's grasp and limped over to retrieve his messages from the nurse on duty.

Wilson followed him as he turned toward the elevators, ignoring the stack of pink messages that the nurse held out to him as he strode past. "It wasn't supposed to happen. I wasn't…it wasn't going to happen again. I shouldn't have…House, talk to me. Yell at me. Anything."

House jabbed the up button and then craned his neck to peer at Wilson over his shoulder. "Why?"

Wilson spluttered. "Why? House – "

"You were right. I liked it."

"You…really?" Wilson glanced about, searching for private eyes or evidence that House wasn't actually talking about the previous night. "It didn't…seem that way. Did it?"

House shrugged, unconcerned. "What's it matter? Not like you can change it." The elevator dinged and House stepped inside. "It's done."

Wilson shook his head and stared, and the elevator door nearly closed before he had sense enough to lunge and block it with his briefcase. He clambered in and then waited until the doors had closed before asking, "Do you mean that? You're okay with it?"

"Would it matter if I weren't?"

Wilson glanced at him without really seeing him. All he could see were a dozen mental snapshots of the night before, though they were colored drunk. This was too good to be true. "So…you aren't going to tell anyone?" The elevator stopped at the fourth floor and the doors slid open.

House shook his head. "Nope." He limped out and headed for his office, looking for all the world like his normal self.

Wilson followed him, wary and optimistic at the same time. "What about Chase?"

"Told him to back off." House threw a reassuring smile over his shoulder. "It's all good."

Wilson's mouth silently repeated those words as House hop-stepped into his office and dropped his backpack on the Eames chair. His fellows were already waiting for him and Wilson glanced through the glass a few times as he made his stunned way to his own office. He could believe that House would forgive an accidental drunken foray, but not the incident of two weeks ago. Wilson couldn't believe he had blabbed it; that was why he hated getting drunk with House. Still…House seemed okay with it.

Wilson flicked on his office light and divested himself of his winter coat. He knew House like he knew the back of his own hand, but right now, the man didn't compute. All Wilson knew was that the relief made him giddy. He had shown up at the hospital this morning certain that he should start packing, maybe even on the verge of arrest. He had even considered finding some way to intimidate House into silence, if that were even possible. But House wasn't going to tell anyone. That could only mean that House wanted it to continue, but being House, he would never come out and say that.

Wilson wandered over to the balcony door and peered toward the diagnostics lounge. He could see shadows moving beyond the blinds, one of them tall and awkward, though in a paradoxically graceful way. Okay, then; Wilson had no problem continuing this thing he had accidentally initiated. Not only did it give him some measure of power in the relationship, but he liked it. He liked it a lot – the way that House gave in at the last moment, the way he fought Wilson but only enough to reveal his unease, the timid crack of his voice and the fear that colored it. Wilson had no idea where those things came from, where House hid them during the day while he doled out snark and sharpness to his underlings and manipulated everyone else. He only knew that if House was willing to let him see it, then he wanted more.

* * *

Wilson showed up at House's apartment after work, as usual, toting a six pack and a bag full of food. He kicked the door because he was out of free hands and waited patiently for House to stump across the room. When the door opened, Wilson held up his offerings in an overly theatrical manner. "I come bearing Thai and alcohol."

House studied the offered dinner and then grumped, "That's no excuse for making a cripple get up in the middle of Dirty Jobs." He turned and made his way back to the couch, sans cane, leaving the door open behind him.

"Well, at least you're in a good mood," Wilson replied. He shuffled inside and shut the door with a combination of his foot and his hip, then headed for the kitchen.

They ate mostly in silence, fighting for the remote though their brand of fighting involved a rather sedate series of attempts to hit the channel button while the other got up to visit the bathroom or get another beer. After they had exhausted House's Tivo offering of daytime soaps, which Wilson only watched because House liked them, House lumbered upright and disappeared into the kitchen. Wilson heard the water turn on and then a clink of dishes. Curious, he set his third beer of the evening down on the coffee table and sauntered over with his hands shoved in his pockets.

House didn't notice him so Wilson leaned in the doorway, just watching as House actually picked up a sponge and cleaned off a dish that had been there all day. Wilson's brows lowered of their own accord. He couldn't even remember the last time he saw House with a sponge in his hand doing something domestic. He knew that it had to happen on occasion, but never with Wilson present.

When House finished with the dish and looked at his countertop, confused as to where to put it to dry, Wilson pushed off the doorway and approached him. House only noticed when Wilson snaked his arms over House's, plucking both the sponge and the dripping plate from his hands. House stiffened and quickly looked into the sink. His eyes alit on a dirty fork and he reached for it, only to have Wilson drop the sponge and grasp his wrist.

"You never wash dishes."

House shrugged, his fingers open to clasp something but held back by Wilson's hand on his wrist. "Aren't you always complaining that you have to clean up after me whether you live here or not?"

Wilson frowned at the tremble in House's voice. So…this voluntary chore-doing…it was a form of evasion. After setting the plate aside, Wilson wrapped his arm around House's waist and played his fingers at the hem of House's t-shirt, which rested just low enough to be obscene. He slid his other hand up House's arm, and leaned forward to press his lips to the nape of House's neck.

House's breathing sped up. "Wilson? I thought this was over."

Against House's skin, Wilson mumbled, "Why would you think that? You said it was okay."

"I said I wasn't going to tell anybody," House corrected, though his voice fell far astern of firm. "I didn't invite you to do it again." He started to turn and step backwards, to slip from Wilson's grasp.

Wilson refused to budge and House simply ended up facing him, backed into the counter. "You didn't say no either," Wilson pointed out. "You didn't say anything, actually." He leaned in, aiming for House's mouth, but House averted his face. Wilson caught the stubble near an absent dimple instead, and settled on it for now. "You're not really fighting this either."

"Look. If you're having some sort of midlife crisis, this isn't gonna help."

"Stop rationalizing." Wilson ran his lips across a patch of stubble, flicking his tongue out to taste it a few times. His hands crept into House's clothes, one up the front of House's shirt to trace his belly button with is thumb, the other down below his tailbone.

"I'm not…not rationalizing. That's…your job…'cept you're not doin' it right now." He inhaled sharply and made a soft strangled sound as Wilson rubbed his leg up against House's groin. "We're not even drunk."

Wilson nipped at the scratchy skin covering a tendon in House's neck, then bent his head to sample the flavor of the flesh behind his ear. He ignored the slight flinch and the way that House tilted his body away. "You shouldn't have to be drunk to accept a little affection from me."

"Oh." House shivered and shifted his weight abruptly off of his bad leg. "Is that what this is?"

"What else would it be, House?" Wilson pressed up against him to feel the matching hardness in House's jeans. It wasn't much yet, but it would be soon. "Why do you keep fighting this? You obviously like it." He made his point by running a hand lightly between them, pressing the backs of his fingers over the fly of House's jeans. "Are you trying to stay miserable?"

House's breath caught a few times as he tried to take a deep breath and Wilson was able to capture his mouth when he ducked his head. House furrowed his brow and started to kiss back, then broke off without warning. "No, this – this is just – this isn't you." He squirmed a bit to try to free himself and merely ended up rubbing their groins harder together. House wasn't completely unresponsive, but he was slowly catching up to Wilson. "_Humph_…Look…it's a physiological response, Wilson. It doesn't mean I want it. I doesn't even mean I like it."

Wilson grabbed at House's belt loops to stop his struggles and pull him closer. "The odds of a man experiencing an involuntary orgasm are – "

"Small, but not absent!" House shoved his palm against Wilson's chest but Wilson leaned his full weight forward to keep their bodies pressed together. "You're a doctor – you know that!"

"And yet you're still here," Wilson pointed out. He caught at House's hand and bent it back to the countertop, then leaned on it to keep it there. "You could stop me if you really wanted to."

House tried to wrench his arm free, to no avail, and Wilson grabbed his other hand too before he could do anything with it. "Are you on something? Did the psychiatrist switch your meds?"

Wilson paused long enough to glare at him. Then he softened as something occurred to him. "You think that a person has to be high in order to like you? To be attracted to you?"

That left House without a response. He peered at Wilson with a mixture of suspicion and foreboding. A moment later, he went deathly still and something cautious snuck out. "Maybe."

Wilson shook his head and ducked under House's chin, forcing his head up so that Wilson could mouth along his shirt collar. "That's just sad, House." He ran his lips in a damp trail up House's throat, then around his chin until their cheeks rested side by side. Wilson rubbed his face against the stubble and exhaled softly near House's ear. From the corner of his eye, he could see that House's eyes were closed, though his face wore a concerned frown. Wilson slipped his hands around House's waist and up underneath the back of his shirt, fingertips gliding along ribs and spine. He could feel House shiver at the touch and breathe more quickly, though he wasn't sure if the shivers were the good kind. "How long has it been since somebody touched you like this?"

"Wilson?" His voice was a low, wary grumble of sound. He pulled back ever so slightly, his body turned to reduce the stimulation of their groins rubbing together.

"I bet it's hard to get this from a hooker, hm?" He tilted his face and pressed their lips together. House didn't respond at all, but he didn't recoil either. Wilson ran the tip of his tongue over House's lips and waited, but they didn't part for him. Without breaking contact, Wilson mumbled, "You shouldn't have to pay someone to pretend to like you."

"Yeah, when I can get you to pretend for free."

Wilson delved forward as House finished speaking, before he had a chance to close his mouth again, and swallowed a surprised grunt. He followed House as he leaned away, and then pulled a hand from the back of House's shirt so that he could hold House's head in place. His fingers laced through graying hair and then locked. House made a sound of protest as Wilson tugged at his hair, and allowed Wilson to continue plundering his mouth. He still didn't participate, though; he just stood there, shaking a bit, his every breath confused and uneasy.

When Wilson reached for the front of House's jeans, House finally moved. He grabbed Wilson's wrist and held it away, then stumbled to the side as he tried to get out from between him and the counter. Their lips fell apart and Wilson pulled hard on House's hair to bring him back within reach. House grimaced. "No. Wilson, stop it."

Wilson twisted his arm to break House's grip and grasped the edge of his sleeve. He bent House's arm behind his back and a short struggle ensued as House yanked his other hand out from under Wilson's. Wilson managed to snatch that one too, and he hooked his fingers between the buttons of House's shirt cuffs so that he could hold House's arms in place against the edge of the sink with one hand. House mewled in protest, a sound very unlike him, and Wilson felt the ripple effect as the blood rushed south. He huffed out a surprised breath and seized House's hair again. "Shh. Relax, House. I'm not going to hurt you."

"Okay."

Wilson mistook that for acquiescence and dove back in.

House gasped and twisted, though, with a panicked air. "Okay. Wilson, look. I get it. Okay?" He moved as if he thought he could shove himself backwards through the counter to escape. "It's a lesson. I take advantage of you, so you're taking – "

Wilson managed to drag House in for another kiss, cutting him off mid-sentence, and he noted that this time, House seemed to have forgotten that he wasn't supposed to be reciprocating. Wilson's tongue explored House's mouth, taking in the flavor of Thai food and the after-taste of Vicodin. House started and tried to draw back again but Wilson refused to let him. He heard House whimper and wondered what it meant, but he didn't stop. He loved the tension that strummed House's frame, a fine tremor trapped between Wilson and the countertop. It seemed that House wasn't sure how to deal with the situation because he kept returning Wilson's attentions in fits and starts before it recurred to him to resist.

Wilson paused for air and House shoved his hip against him, hard. Taken by surprise, Wilson stumbled back, losing his grip, and caught himself on the kitchen island. He stood there for a moment, stunned, and watched House collect himself before limping out of the room as fast as he could without his cane. He wouldn't look at Wilson.

"House!" Wilson pushed off the island and strode into the living room to find House supporting himself against the wall as he retrieved Wilson's briefcase from the floor. He turned as Wilson approached him and headed off any action that Wilson might have taken by shoving the briefcase into his arms. "What – Isn't this what you wanted? All this time, you've been making sure that I can't have a life outside of you. You stalk me on dates, you harass my girlfriends, you come over to my house and insult my wives to their faces, you call me in the middle of the night to come over here because your leg hurts – "

"Don't worry – I won't be calling you for _that_ ever again."

Wilson started, clutching his briefcase to his chest as if to ward off House's temper. "Why else would you sabotage my life, House? Unless you wanted – "

"You drugged me!" House shouted. He tore Wilson's coat from the hook behind him and flung that at him as well. "What's your excuse for that, Wilson? You weren't drunk, I didn't _do_ anything to you!"

Wilson fumbled to move the coat so that he could see House without dropping it. "I don't know," he admitted. "You…smelled good."

House shook his head and blinked, then shot Wilson an incredulous look. Then he clamped his mouth shut and gave Wilson an awful smile as he pretty much hopped a few steps to the door and wrenched it open.

Wilson rolled his eyes and peered at the ceiling for a moment before directing an irritated glare at House. "You know what your problem is?"

"No, but I'm sure you'll tell me," House sniped.

Wilson gave him a look of pure loathing, which he felt very strongly just then. His retort toppled out the window and he simply replied, "I hate you. I really do, House. I can't stand being around you anymore – you're like a plague. You have your fingers in every corner of my life and I can't take even one thing back from you, because you won't give."

House sneered. "You're an idiot. You think you can just – "

"What I _thought_ was that you won't let me have a social life. So if I make _you_ my social life, then we both get what we want."

House's nostrils flared. "Then, just so we're clear…you _were_ pretending in the kitchen. That was just your patented brand of manufactured affection. It didn't mean anything."

"Fuck you," Wilson muttered.

As Wilson stalked out and made for the building door, he heard House reply, "You already did," as he slammed the door.

Wilson stopped in front of the main door and half turned back, though his eyes remained trained on the all-weather mat beneath his feet. This was not… House couldn't just dismiss him like that. The bastard had made sure, over the course of nearly two decades, that Wilson didn't have anywhere else to turn. He wasn't allowed to just cut him loose like that, not after all the crap Wilson had put up with.

But now was not the time for that. Wilson took a calming breath and exited the building without glancing back. House would seek him out again – he always did. No matter what Wilson did or said, House always came back. Wilson could wait.

-TBC


	5. Chapter 5

Chase had already paid for his coffee and started out of the cafeteria when he spotted House sitting far away in a corner table with a bagel that it appeared he had bought himself. That actually heartened Chase a bit. If House had paid for his own food, then Wilson wasn't bothering him at the moment. He glanced about, trying to decide whether to interrupt his brooding or not, and then made a face before tromping through the groggy morning human traffic. He sat down across the table from House before saying, "Hey."

House looked up from his bagel and came back as if from a great distance. He didn't smile, or really make an expression at all. He simply shifted and sat back a bit before returning to heavy contemplation of his uneaten bagel.

Chase leaned his elbows on the table and cleared his throat before venturing to say anything. He didn't want to have this conversation; it was probably the worst sort of discussion he could imagine having, and House was the worst candidate with whom to have it. He absorbed House's distracted poise, and then took the plunge. "Did he do it again?"

House's brows drew down but he kept his eyes on the bagel, as if cream cheese and toasted bread held the meaning of life in folds of spread. "Not…exactly."

That surprised Chase – not the part where House more-or-less admitted that Wilson _had_ done something, but the part where he gave an answer at all. And without sarcasm, at that. "So…what's up?"

"You suck at this," House snarked. He bobbed his head from side to side and gestured between them. "You know. The touchy subject thing."

"I failed touchy subjects at med school." Chase tried to lighten his tone, but to tell the truth, he felt a little queasy.

House huffed in silent laughter. "That's why I hired you."

Chase grinned, but turned serious soon after. "Um…look. I'm not sure what to do here. So I'm just gonna…offer…if you need something. You know. You can ask." He shrugged. "Whatever. And I promise I won't say anything, not even to Cameron, and I won't get sappy, and I _really_ promise I'll never hug you again."

House smiled a bit, still staring at his bagel. "We went bowling once last year."

Chase nodded and lounged back in his chair. He was sure he looked just as uneasy as he felt. "Don't you and Wilson go bowling every week?"

House glanced up, finally, to look at him like Chase was a moron. "With you, not him. Remember?"

"Oh." Chase looked away and sipped his coffee just to cover whatever it was that might have crossed his face and given away…whatever it was that he felt. He was too confused and unsettled with what he knew to sort himself out. "Yeah. You walked out mid-game."

"Right. Forgot that part." House sighed and made a face at the ceiling, something like a pout but with his bottom lip pulled in. He puffed one cheek out, then the other, and then asked, "You still like bowling?"

Chase perked up at that. "Yeah. You wanna go?"

"Sure. Sounds good." House looked at his bagel again, then eyed Chase for a moment. Just as his gaze began to get too intense for Chase not to squirm under, House grabbed his cane and pulled himself upright. "After work? I'll wait in my office."

Chase nodded. "I have a surgery scheduled for three, so I might be late. But I'll be there."

House gave him a smile that consisted of him sucking his lower lip between his teeth and raising his eyebrows. Then he pivoted and limped out of the cafeteria.

"Hm." Chase made a satisfied face at no one and gulped at his coffee. He also snatched the bagel that House had left behind, and then hurried off to scrub in for a morning procedure.

* * *

Wilson made a point of walking past the diagnostics office every time he left his office, but he studiously refrained from looking in. The day passed in relative peace and he kept waiting for House to drop in, to call him out, to make one of his not-quite-apologies and invite him over for a movie. Eight o'clock rolled around and Wilson actually finished his backlogged paperwork. He scrubbed at his face and set his pen down, then leaned to the left to peer across the balcony. He could just make out the back of House's chair, still occupied by his friend. What the hell could he be working on this late? He wouldn't stick around for a non-critical patient, and Wilson had already checked in on House's latest medical mystery; there was no imminent threat of death there. Maybe he was just waiting around for Wilson to cave so that he wouldn't have to.

Wilson sat back and grazed his cleared desk with a contemplative sweep of his eyes. He didn't want to admit to himself that he was worried. Not just about House's lack of characteristic response to a fight between the two of them, but about his own actions of late. He knew that he should have left House alone after the morphine injection. Certainly, he never should have initiated a drunken hand job. Wilson didn't even like men, it was just that House…he couldn't fathom what the hell he felt. It was something like a compulsion to keep after him.

After giving vent to a frustrated sigh, Wilson set his desk to rights and switched his computer off. Maybe House was right and there was something wrong with Wilson, something that had been brewing for a long time, undetected. His anger at House, his lashing out in some fashion, had been a long time coming, not least because House was an infuriating person. Wilson himself had a bad habit of internalizing and then exploding at the worst moment, and in the worst sort of way. Perhaps he had exploded without noticing this time. That might explain his terrifying calm right now, his detachment. He felt apathy toward everything right now aside from House, and he couldn't qualify what he felt toward House.

Wilson shoved his arms into his coat and adjusted the collar before grabbing his briefcase and locking his office for the night. He sauntered around the corner and stared into House's office for a few seconds, undecided. He shouldn't go in there, and he knew it. If he played his cards right, House would fold. But Wilson couldn't help himself. He glanced at the elevators on the other side of the dimmed hallway, and then made a face at the ceiling before he headed into the diagnostics lounge.

House looked up as Wilson padded in, his fingers frozen around the edges of an MRI film. "Wilson." He looked three parts surprised, one part cornered as he dragged his reading glasses down off his nose. "What are you doing here?"

"I was waiting for you," Wilson replied. He shuffled over to plop down in one of House's guest chairs, which was ironic considering House didn't welcome guests in his office. "Are you doing anything tonight?" Of course he wasn't, he never made plans, but Wilson asked out of politeness. He was always unfailingly polite.

"Actually, yeah." House set his glasses down and folded his hands on the desk. He sounded acutely uncomfortable.

Wilson smirked and tapped his foot a few times. "So, this is how you're going to retaliate? You're going to sit alone in your office all night and pretend that you have better things to do?" He scoffed. "That's pathetic." Inwardly, Wilson frowned, though. He hadn't meant to say that last bit out loud. Oh well. Not like it wasn't true, and he'd said worse to House over the years.

House's eyes fell to his desk and he glanced over the various files and trinkets that stood between him and Wilson. "I'm going bowling," he said softly.

Wilson looked up. If he didn't know any better, he would think that House sounded hurt. "Bowling? Alone?"

"No." House's gaze flickered up long enough to catch Wilson's eyes on him, and then he sucked on his lower lip for a second. "Chase…invited me." He tried appear casually put-upon and gave Wilson an exasperated look. "He's still in surgery, though. Some appendicitis patient decided to code and try to bleed out." He guffawed but the mirth faded quickly and he just looked sick.

"Well, that's too bad." Wilson shifted. "I'll go bowling with you instead. If he's stuck there much longer, you won't have time for a game."

House looked up, the wariness seeping out. "I told him I'd wait here."

"So?" Wilson tapped his foot a bit harder. "It's not like he'd be surprised if you left. It's after eight o'clock."

House glanced at his computer monitor to confirm this, or maybe just because he needed an excuse to look away. He chewed on his lip for a second. "I don't think – "

"Why?" Wilson cut him off. "What do you think I'll do to you in a bowling alley, House? It's a public place."

"You – why are you doing this?" House asked, desperate to make some sense of Wilson's behavior. "You have to know it was wrong, what you…with the morphine. Don't you?"

Wilson pursed his lips and looked away. "Do you even remember that? It couldn't have been so bad if you thought it was just a dream." He made faces at the darkened diagnostics office, marked a mental note to switch off the coffee maker before they left, and added, "And you came too. Don't forget that."

House made a non-verbal sound of disbelief and Wilson looked back to find him sucking on both lips at once, his eyes fixed unblinking on the light board and the films hung there. "I don't know what to do," he confessed, his voice frayed. "Something's wrong with you."

Wilson settled his feet and leaned across the desk, unaffected by House drawing back suddenly. "Nothing's wrong with me. You're the one who wanted this – you wanted me focused on you. Nobody but you. And now that you've got it, you can't even be grateful for it?"

"Wilson, I…" House's eyes trailed to the corridor as if he hoped to find someone to signal for help.

Wilson turned, but the hallway was empty. He shot to his feet, ignored House's jump at the movement, and crossed the room to shut the blinds. He also toed the locks at floor level for good measure. Then he came back, rounding the desk in angry strides to lean his hands on the armrests of House's chair, their faces inches apart. "You did this, House. _You_. As if I could have missed the message at this point, after you _killed_ my girlfriend just to make sure I couldn't leave you. Now you have to deal with the consequences."

House's eyes widened and he nearly stopped breathing, pressed as far back in the chair as he could get without falling out of it. "You…you need help. Your psychiatrist – "

Wilson seized a handful of House's hair and House cut himself off with a whimper, cringing under Wilson's hand. "My psychiatrist told me to try and reach an understanding with you. And I have." House's fingers curled around Wilson's forearm, but he didn't exactly resist. "You already know that, don't you?" Wilson shifted closer, so that he towered over House's scrunched frame. "If you didn't think you deserved it, you would have hit me by now. Or told Cuddy, or called the police. If you didn't secretly _want_ it, you wouldn't let me near you. I know you, House. You don't take shit from people unless you know it's justified. You fight tooth and nail when you think you're right – you'd go to prison on principle if you had to, just to prove a point, just to solve a case. You've had plenty of opportunities to contradict me but you haven't. You've let me do this." He yanked House's hair in demonstration, forcing his head up. "You've let me touch you. You've _made_ me want you, and only you, because it's dangerous for me to want anybody else, because if I ever want someone else I have to expose them to you and your obsessions and your stalking and your harassment." Wilson stepped forward, his feet planted on either side of House's, his breath mingling under their noses as House gasped and tried not to tremble. "And you'll let me continue because you know I'm right, House. You know you wanted this – you _worked_ for this."

House grabbed at the buttons on Wilson's trench coat, his knuckles clenched until they drained of blood. "That's not true. You need help. You need medication. I can call someone, we could get you into a program – "

Wilson moved too fast for House's comfort and House threw himself back in the chair to evade him. Wilson's grip on his hair thwarted that attempt and Wilson pressed his face up beside House's, his lips ghosting over the shell of House's ear. He reveled in the panicked cry that pried itself from House's lips, too soft to be heard outside of this room. "You can't get out of it now, House. You made this bed, and I'm going to make sure you sleep in it."

With that, Wilson abruptly let him go and backed away, satisfied for the time being. He hadn't left marks, he hadn't hurt House. They had merely talked. Anyone could see that. Wilson picked up his briefcase and twisted his heel to smash at the door lock. He didn't need to look back to know that House hadn't moved, and that he wouldn't say anything to Chase. Wilson knew House damn well; House would never admit to an underling that he was afraid, and even if Chase noticed something off in his demeanor, House would keep his own counsel. It would mortify him not to.

"Have fun bowling," Wilson called over his shoulder as he left. He paused in the hallway and came back long enough to switch off the coffee maker. No use burning the slush at the bottom of the pot until the whole lounge stank. True to expectations, House remained seated exactly as Wilson had left him, his wide eyes trained on Wilson's every move. Wilson smiled at him and waved as he left for the night. Perhaps this would work out after all.

--TBC


	6. Chapter 6

A/N - This chapter containes graphic non-con in the second half...be warned. And thanks for reading!!

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Chase stumbled out of the locker room fresh from a shower and utterly exhausted from a difficult surgery. It was nearly ten o'clock, too late for bowling by now. He rode the elevator up to the fourth floor, scratching at his dry skin. The locker room soap was like sand. He sincerely hoped that House had gone home by now; he was a doctor, he knew how this sort of thing went. They could bowl another night.

The elevator dinged and deposited him in the corridor outside of his old workplace. He noted the glow from House's office with dismay, but House appeared to be busy on a diagnosis. The whiteboard was covered in his large, hurried scrawl, and House himself sat slouched in one of the conference room chairs, idly twirling his cane while he stared at the symptoms and picked at his lower lip with his free hand.

Chase sighed and ran smack into the door before he realized it was locked. He bounced off the glass pane with a resounding bong and stumbled back a few steps. House jumped and twisted in his chair, then ducked his head and tried not to laugh as he climbed stiffly to his feet.

"Very funny," Chase griped. He watched House mash at the release with his cane, then waited until he hobbled out of the way before shoving the door open. "Why'd you lock it?"

Over his shoulder, House remarked, "Some crazed gunman shot me in here once, you know." Then he carefully resumed his seat in front of the white board. It looked like his leg was bothering his tonight; he pressed the heel of his hand into the divot where his thigh muscle used to be, sliding his foot forward to stretch the limb out as far as it would go. His entire frame canted to the left and he went back to picking his lip with his left hand while his right inscribed complicated patterns on his leg.

Chase was used to House's single-minded obsessions when it came to patients; Esther had only been one such case. "What have you got?" He stood behind House's chair and studied the list of symptoms for a second: aggression, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, lack of affect, lack of moral recognition, lack of comprehension of event causality, diminished interpretive skills, delusions(?), depression, probable insomnia, extreme mood changes, sexual aggression, abnormal sexual urges, loss of impulse control. Chase's brows drew down. "This isn't Wilson, is it?"

"Random forty-four year old male with prior obsessive-compulsive tendencies and a mild anxiety disorder, plus occasional depressive episodes, presents with a noted _lack_ of anxiety or depression, episodes of uncharacteristic aggression, evidence of delayed reasoning and ability to recognize immoral actions or situations. Loss of ability to control impulses and urges, both verbal and physical. Shows – "

"You're not seriously trying to diagnose Wilson," Chase cut in. He walked around to stand at the edge of House's field of vision. "You _do_ realize that he raped you, right? And from all of this, I'm guessing that wasn't the only incident. Whatever he's doing now, it's just because he's afraid to get caught. He's playing you – he knows that if he gives you a good enough puzzle, you'll focus on that instead of on what he did."

House sank lower in the chair, his features darkening until they touched on anger. He hid the expression behind a mock-sympathetic pout and tilted his head back to peer at Chase. "Aw. Is poor little Chase having flashbacks? Seminary school must have been a bitch – you're just so pretty. I bet you spent all your time on your knees. You know, 'praying.' That why you left?"

Chase twisted his mouth into an irritated mess and then forced a smile. "Yeah, House. That's why I quit. I spent so much time 'praying' that I got arthritis in my knees and lost the ability to hold the proper position."

House snorted and resumed his silent discourse with the white board.

"You're avoiding the issue."

"And you're sticking your nose where it's not welcome. I told you I didn't want you insinuating yourself into my private life. Why can't you just – " He clamped his mouth shut and dropped his forehead into his fist, the back of thumb dug into the space between his eyes. Once he calmed down sufficiently, he said, his voice tight, "Something is wrong with him. He wouldn't act this way unless something were wrong."

Chase watched him continue to jab knuckles into his forehead, then nodded to himself and set his bag on the table. He got it. House needed this right now. "Okay. Nervous breakdown?"

House's head flopped back again so that he could glare at Chase upside-down. "You worked for me for five years, and you think that's an acceptable diagnosis?" He faced the board again and tapped his foot in a rapid staccato. "It's not psychiatric."

"Doesn't he have a family history of schizophrenia?"

"Wilson's too old for onset. And I already told you – it's organic."

Chase ignored him. "There have been late-onset cases for patients who were exposed to particularly traumatic – "

"It's organic!"

Chase took a few breaths and then dared to say, "You _need_ it to be organic. You're excluding a slew of possible diagnoses just because you want a quick fix."

House didn't address him directly; he picked at his lip a few times and then said, "Wilson doesn't hurt people."

"House, let the authorities handle this. Go to the police. They can – "

"They won't care if something's wrong. All they'll care about is putting him in prison. Wilson couldn't survive that – he's too pretty."

Chase looked down. This wasn't fair. House didn't care about anyone the way he cared about Wilson, and Wilson… Wilson wasn't worth it. "You can't protect him."

"I did this to him – he's right." House shifted in his seat and lowered his hand, but his eyes remained riveted on the white board, raking across symptoms with all the diagnostic skill he had. "I made sure he was alone. I made sure nobody would want to be his friend because they'd have to deal with me, and no one wants to deal with me. If I weren't such an ass – "

"You didn't bring this on yourself."

House's mouth folded up on itself and he jutted his chin out, his eyebrows elevated just enough to convey that sentiment of _maybe things were never what I thought they were_. "He's right, though. He's giving me exactly what I wanted."

Chase tilted his head, puzzled, and met House's gaze when it slid his way.

"His undivided attention."

"Don't go back to him." The words left Chase's mouth before he could think about them, and they contained more feeling than he had expected. "He's not doing this because he's fond of you – he's doing it to control you. To use you. Can't you see that?"

To Chase's surprise, House nodded. But his words left the room dead. "At least he wants that from _me_. That's something, anyway."

Chase's insides grew cold and he felt his breathing speed up. "House, don't." He cursed the way his voice broke. "It's not flattery."

"I know." House turned his head and looked at Chase dead on. "But who else would have me?"

Chase couldn't keep looking at him, so he looked at the sink instead. That was when he noticed House's red coffee mug, and next to it, a half-empty bottle of some indeterminate liquor that he normally kept sequestered in his bottom right-hand desk drawer. Okay…okay, so House had been drinking. That would explain this – enough of this to at least reassure Chase that House wasn't serious, not completely. It was just a tipsy ramble, a bit of alcoholic introspection. It didn't mean _much_ in the long run. "It's late. I'll drive you home and you can pick up with your team tomorrow."

House glanced at the white board again, then sighed and shut his eyes. "Yeah. I'm sick of this place."

Chase gathered all of House's electronics from his office while House himself dry-swallowed two Vicodin and chased them down with the last of the liquor in his coffee mug. Chase shot him a disapproving glare, which House pretended not to notice, and they turned everything off for the night.

Once they boarded the elevator, House turned to regard Chase with a purpose. "Thanks."

Chase slowly faced him, a little suspicious. House? Grateful? "Sure. Whatever." They alit on the ground floor and Chase let House precede him, but he noticed the tiny smile on his former boss's face. It made Chase smile too.

* * *

Wilson was walking a clinic patient out when he noticed House disappear into an exam room. The patient distracted Wilson with some sort of last minute need for clarification on the use of her damn cough syrup, and Wilson forced a smile to go along with his answer. Once the woman left, Wilson made his chart notes and dropped it off at the clinic desk. "Hey, Brenda. Is House with a patient?"

Brenda gave him a wry look. "What do you think?"

Wilson rolled his eyes and smiled, then headed over to exam room three. He knocked for form's sake, then went in and shut the door behind him. "Hey. No soaps today?"

House glanced over his obvious lack of electronics with an irritated look, then held up a patient file. "Working. I do that sometimes."

"Okay. So, where's the patient?"

"Right in front of me." House spun around and sat on the stool with his cane planted between his legs. He studied Wilson with a clinical yet guarded air.

Wilson narrowed his eyes. "You think I'm sick?"

House shrugged. "It would explain a few things."

"I can't believe you sometimes." Wilson stalked around the exam table and leaned against the observation window. The waiting room was nearly empty for once. It was surely a fluke. He didn't turn around when he heard House stand up, though he caught a hint of movement reflecting off the glass.

"Look. I get that you're angry." House was using what passed for a sympathetic tone of voice, coming from him. Basically, he sounded strained. "You didn't really get angry before, so I suppose it was just a matter of time. But there are better ways – "

"I'm not angry." Wilson said that with as much calm as he could muster, which was a lot. He drew the blinds and then turned from the window to gaze softly across the room.

"You're not?" House's eyes narrowed and he leaned on his cane to distract himself long enough to find a new tack. "Then…what's all this about?" He gestured between Wilson and himself.

Wilson took a deep breath and crossed his arms, trying to appear open for once. "You just make it really easy for me to hate you, House."

That hit somewhere hard; Wilson could see it as it settled in House's face, in slackened lines and a hint of confusion. House's words seemed thick, clumsy as he spoke. "You're doing this because you hate me?"

"Can you blame me?" Wilson stepped forward, encouraged that House was too stunned to back away. "Not always, though. There are times I still like you." He reached up and ran a hand through House's hair, evoking a bewildered look that mingled with some pale brand of hurt. But once again, House didn't draw back. "When you're not mocking me or interfering with my patients…when you're just sitting there…I don't mind you so much."

House swallowed and looked away. "I want to draw some blood. Check for infections or…something else that could cause a change in personality."

"Would that make you feel better?" Wilson asked, leaning forward to invade House's personal space. House's eyes flickered back and forth for a second, not quite meeting Wilson's. "If you could find some other reason?"

"Yeah, it would," House murmured, his voice gruff. He shifted back a foot or so, but Wilson followed.

"Okay, then. You can have whatever tests you want." Wilson stepped forward, purposefully backing House into the exam table. He ran a possessive hand up House's flank, settling at the curve of neck and shoulder. House shivered and looked up, but his gaze didn't move any higher than Wilson's collar. He seemed too subdued at the moment, but Wilson liked that; he liked the idea of a submissive House, and if Wilson played his cards right, if he kept on with this gentle force, then perhaps House would fall in line of his own free will.

"Wilson – "

"Quiet. We're in an unlocked exam room. Do you really want anyone to see this?" Wilson slid his hand around to grip the back of House's neck, aroused by the way House stiffened and bowed his head, his eyes automatically falling. Wilson locked his other hand on House's hip and pressed up against him, careful not to push too hard as he molded their bodies together. He let go long enough to pry House's cane from his hand and lean it out of reach against the counter behind them.

House's eyes followed it, and then he gripped the edge of the exam table and turned his face away. He stuttered a bit when he said, "And an MRI. I want you to get an MRI."

"You don't have to pretend you're still in control, House."

"I'm not." He flinched as Wilson's fingers tightened on his neck but didn't make any other outward sign of resistance as Wilson ran his lips up House's jugular without parting them.

Wilson paused to inhale the faint musk that clung to House's skin, then turned his face in and lightly suckled just below House's ear. He enjoyed the shudder that ran through House's lean frame, a reaction he couldn't exactly hide since Wilson was pressed all along his front. Wilson moved his hand from House's hip to the small of his back and rubbed slow, soothing circles there until House tipped his head up to look at the ceiling. It was possible that House was trying to distance himself from the situation. If so, Wilson resolved to make sure he couldn't just block out the moment.

Wilson wrapped his arm properly around House's waist and crushed them together, leaning his full weight forward so that House wouldn't be able to squirm out of Wilson's grasp. "Umph. Wilson? We're in the clinic."

House attempted to slip sideways but Wilson tangled his fingers more tightly in House's hair and jerked his head back. "Then you'd better stay quiet. Like I said – you don't really want anyone walking in on this, do you?"

House's hands showed up on Wilson's arms, gripped tightly around his biceps. He didn't push Wilson away, though; not yet. "This is a little extreme."

Wilson shoved his face down into House's loose shirt collar and bit the tendon that stretched across his shoulder. House hissed and tried to jump back, but since the exam table prevented it, the movement appeared more like a spasm. When Wilson didn't let up right away, House's breath caught. He twisted a bit and actually drew his right leg up, as if he intended to insinuate it between their bodies. Wilson glanced down as soon as he realized this, and then sneered around the flesh in his teeth. He released it but seized House's arms and shoved him forcefully back to still his struggles.

House stumbled back onto both feet and caught himself against the exam table. Wilson didn't allow him a chance to recover. He trapped House's wrists against the crinkly paper and leaned on them, then worked his leg between House's and went after his mouth. He swallowed House's surprised grunt, and then started when House kissed back. With glee, Wilson intensified his efforts, plunging forward to taste the bitter coffee and Vicodin cocktail that flavored House's saliva. He reveled in the sharp bursts of air that House exhaled through his nose and started rubbing his thigh against House's groin.

"Mmph!" House broke off with a gasp and Wilson latched onto his throat instead. "Wilson." His voice came out sharp but low. "Wilson, we can't do this here."

Wilson somehow managed to get closer and he felt the vibration under his lips as House moaned too softly to hear. Wilson glanced up to find House blinking straight into the fluorescent ceiling light, then raised himself to reach House's ear. He nibbled all along the lobe and then dared to flick his tongue in around the folded cartilage, ignoring the bitterness. House sucked in a breath and then whimpered, his chest heaving. That was when he started fighting in earnest.

"Wilson, come on. There are people right outside!" House ducked away from Wilson's mouth but he couldn't wrench his hands free.

"Then shut up," Wilson snarled. He shoved his groin into House's hip, more aroused than deterred by the way House wriggled against him. He was hard, he _ached_ for this.

House whined far back in his throat and shrank back, but there was nowhere for him to go. "You're gonna get caught. Wilson, _please_."

"You think anybody would believe you don't want this?" Wilson legged the underside of House's cock hard enough to hurt. "I'm the nice guy, House. They'd think you were making it up – playing them."

A strangled sound escaped House's lips and he hiccupped over something else that threatened to slip out.

"And the fact that this has been going on for weeks? That you haven't said anything before now? How do you think that makes you look?"

House angled his upper body to the side but he couldn't do anything about the placement of their legs. "I don't want you to get in trouble. Please – this isn't like you."

"Is that why you haven't done anything about it yet?" Wilson demanded. He let go of House's right hand and seized a handful of his hair again, eliciting a pained grunt. "You think you can find some magical cure and everything will go away?" He wrenched House's mouth back within reach and looked House dead on, their faces less than an inch apart. "Gregory House, the medical wunderkind. You can fix anything with your white board and a few markers, can't you. You can only see what you _want _to see…erase whatever you don't like to look at."

House panted under Wilson's ministrations, hot breath hitting Wilson's face with every panicked exhale. "You…you're not you. You have to stop."

"Why?" Wilson crashed their mouths together and forced his tongue past House's tightly clenched lips. House pinched off a yelp of some sort as Wilson pinned him back against the exam table. He could feel a matching hardness against his thigh; House couldn't fight against the adrenaline that his amygdala signaled out in increasing amounts as a response to fear, to danger. Wilson drew back, but only so that he could crane his neck around House's head and reach his ear with a whisper. "You really want me to stop?"

"Yes!" House gasped. "Yes, _please_, Wilson. Please, that's enough."

"Then you need to solve this problem for me." Wilson canted his hips to make sure that House felt the erection that strained at his suit pants.

House tipped his head down to shoot Wilson an incredulous look, and then he glanced over Wilson's shoulder at the closed, unlocked exam room door.

"Go ahead," Wilson challenged. "Call for help. See what happens."

House swallowed hard and his eyes teared up just enough to lend a quiet sheen to the irises. "I'm…I don't…" A furious blush rose on his cheeks: shame.

"You don't want people to know," Wilson guessed. He knew House; he knew that to admit being in this situation would damn near kill his pride. "And they don't have to. It's just this one time, House. And then you can have your blood tests and all the MRI's you can con out of Cuddy. Just fix _this_ first." He shoved his clothed cock into House's hip again.

House shied and a single drop of salt made its way out. "It won't be just once," he choked out.

Wilson shrugged. "Even if it's not, what are you going to do about it? Tell them? Let them see how weak you are?" He stilled after that and just stood there, listening to House's erratic breathing, silently waiting for him to make up his mind. Not that he had much choice. A few ragged breaths later, House swallowed what was probably a sob and looked down. Wilson released him and backed up enough for House to maneuver, but not to escape. When House extended trembling hands toward Wilson's pants, Wilson grabbed one of his wrists in a bruising grip. "Not like that."

The shaking spread to encompass the rest of House's body and he met Wilson's gaze, his eyes wide. "Wilson…"

"Me, or them," Wilson stated flatly, hooking a thumb over his shoulder. "Your choice, House."

House licked his lips to prolong his hesitation, but they both knew what he would choose. He looked about ready to either hyperventilate or cry, but House wasn't prone to crying. So he braced himself on the exam table and slowly got down on his knees. Wilson could have come from that sight alone but he held back. He wanted to savor the full effect of this moment. House had flushed all the way to the roots of his hair and he refused to look at any part of Wilson that he didn't have to as he reached up to work the buckle and unzip Wilson's pants.

"Wait," Wilson snapped. House immediately withdrew his hands, shooting Wilson a hopeful look. The expression died when he saw that all Wilson intended to do was turn the lock on the door. Wilson came back and braced his hands on the exam table, bent over House's body like a human cage. "Okay."

House just knelt there for an interminable moment, staring up at Wilson's face hovering above him, begging silently for him to call it off, make it into a joke, anything. When he got nothing in response, House hiccupped again and hurried to finish opening Wilson's pants, fumbling his long, quaking fingers at the hem of Wilson's boxers. Wilson set his feet farther apart and gazed downward. He practically loved House at that moment, the way he grasped the backs of Wilson's thighs and leaned up, shallow breaths bathing Wilson's slick length, drawing a bead of precum from his tip on that stimulus alone. House eyed the milky fluid as it dripped down Wilson's length, then swallowed back what was probably disgust as he squeezed his eyes shut and licked it off.

Wilson shuddered and willed his knees not to buckle as House's tongue moved up along the underseam until he could suck Wilson's tip into his mouth. House had chapped lips but Wilson didn't care; he held still as House sealed his mouth around Wilson's head and sucked lightly. It seemed that he intended to do this as well as he knew how, on the off chance that a half-assed job would earn him further humiliation. Wilson loved that too. Slowly, House took Wilson's erection into his mouth, working his jaw around it, trembling in such a way that Wilson could feel it all along his cock where House's mouth pressed in, suction fluttering in moist heat all around him. He thrust forward, not too much, and House jerked back so abruptly that he hit his head on the exam table.

Wilson glared at him. "House."

House shook his head and muttered some sort of apology, then dove back in. He took Wilson in quickly this time, as far as he could, until Wilson felt his tip impact the back of House's throat. House tilted his head to run the roof of his mouth over Wilson's cock, sucking for all he was worth, his tongue writhing in the confined space. He kept his eyes clamped shut and worked Wilson over pretty well, considering he had probably never done this before. In less than a minute, Wilson felt his balls drawing up. He let go of the exam table and grasped a handful of House's hair to move him faster. House flinched at the touch but let Wilson control the pace, his fingers curled around the backs of Wilson's legs, blunt thumbnails digging into toned thigh muscle – the sort of muscle House didn't have, at least on one side.

Wilson shuffled forward a bit and held House's head still, pinning him back against the exam table so that he could not draw away at the crucial moment. He pumped deeper once House was immobilized, his knees bent slightly, and hunched over the exam table, his weight supported on one elbow. He couldn't believe how good this felt. Maybe it was House himself being unaccountably good at this, but more likely it was the power that he had managed to talk House into giving up. The willing submission, considering how much House must despise doing this, did incredible things to Wilson's libido. He ignored it when House made a choked sound around his cock, then hissed as House's fingers gouged into his legs. The combination sent him over the edge and he thrust forward as hard as he could, relishing the added intensity of House's throat muscles rippling around him as he fought to breath and swallow at the same time.

Once the wave passed, Wilson withdrew and House immediately doubled over, fighting to breathe as he swallowed what he could. Long strings of drool and semen dripped from his swollen lips when he tried to spit some of it out, and then he gagged for a second. Wilson thought for sure that he would throw up on the spot, but he coughed it back and then just sat there, crumpled up on the floor, staring at the linoleum and breathing so hard that his back heaved with each inhale.

Wilson walked over to the sink and sedately washed his hands. Before he left, he wet a paper towel and held it in front of House's face. House shied but took it, and Wilson exited without another word.

--TBC


	7. Chapter 7

When Chase got out of surgery, he found House in the waiting room, sequestered in a cushy chair in a corner far away from the patient's family. He was staring at a tabloid without really reading it, one hand clenched around the newsprint while the other picked away at his lips and scratched patches of stubble on his cheek. He looked like one giant nervous twitch barely held in check, two sips of coffee away from exploding. His sneaker tapped out an irritating, rapid rhythm on the table he had perched it against, earning him a plethora of dirty looks from the nearby loved ones. If House noticed, he obviously didn't care, but Chase didn't think he was paying enough attention to realize how annoying his twitchy foot was.

House looked up as Chase addressed the family to report a successful surgery. He stayed in his corner, though, until the room's other occupants filed out, on their way to recovery. Once the door swung closed on the last of them, House lifted his bad leg down and climbed upright. He bent down to retrieve a blood draw kit that he had left sitting on the floor beside the chair, then limped over to Chase.

House came just close enough to extend the kit on one long arm. "I need you to go draw Wilson's blood."

Chase's brow furrowed. "What are you talking about?"

"I convinced him to let me run some tests – chem panel, tox screens and an MRI." House shook the kit in Chase's face, impatient, and presented Chase with an empty smile. "Come on, it's late. I want to get him before he leaves for the night."

Chase just stood there for a moment, studying House the way House normally scrutinized everyone else. He hadn't once made eye contact since Chase had entered the room. In addition, his arm trembled under the diminutive weight of the blood draw kit; it was a fine shiver, but Chase noticed it. He also noticed that House had buttoned his shirt up to the collar. House never buttoned his shirts all the way. "Convinced him, how?"

House glanced up, his eyes touching something near Chase's temple. "What does it matter? He agreed – go get me blood." Then he pretended to find something extremely interesting about the carpet threads under the rubber tip of his cane.

Chase crossed his arms and fought back the sense of foreboding that insisted on percolating in his stomach. "Are you cold?"

"Am I _cold_?" House mocked. Then he finally met Chase's eyes for a bare second, just long enough to read them. His gaze slid away again, but so did the blood draw kit. House dangled his arm at his side and made a passable attempt to appear put-upon. "You said you'd help." It came out more dejected than anything else.

Chase unfolded his arms and turned away briefly to hide his reaction. When he faced House again, the older man had not moved. "Take off your shirt. I want to see what he did."

House looked away and bit his lip, then took a few steps back. He hefted the blood draw kit and then glared at Chase from under lidded eyes. "Never mind."

"Hey, not so fast." Chase moved to block him, disturbed by the flash of apprehension that crossed House's face. "I'll help you, House. But if he did anything, if you need medical attention – "

"He didn't do anything!" House snapped, but the hoarseness in his voice betrayed him. He seemed to realize that soon after Chase did, and he backed away so that Chase couldn't reach him. "You don't understand. It wasn't _like_ that."

Chase pretended not to notice the lump in his throat when he cleared it. "How'd you talk him into it?"

House shrugged. "Does it matter?"

Chase held his ground, daunted though he was by the shadow that obscured House's face.

House made a noncommittal sound and then snarked, "Why can't you just go draw the damn blood?"

"Either show me what he did, or I'm going to Cuddy. Now." Chase hated that his voice shook, but he refused to let it deter him.

House took a few quick breaths. It seemed like he was trying to work up some sort of smart ass retort, but kept stalling out. They both remained in place, a silent standoff, until House stated, "You can't. Doctor-patient confidentiality forbids you from discussing anything, even with other doctors." He pounded his cane into the rug a few times, as if to punctuate that.

"You're not my patient," Chase replied, "unless you take off your shirt and let me treat you." That was the crux, though; the second House let him see, Chase couldn't say anything to anyone without his express permission. Surely it was better to be in House's confidence, though. At least from within, Chase could try to help; if House refused to confide in him, then no matter what Chase said to the authorities, House would simply deny it. There was no other way for Chase to be there for him, aside from this – to simply be present, and wait for House to come to his senses. Otherwise, Chase risked alienating him; if that happened, then if House ever _truly_ needed his help, he wouldn't come to Chase. He wouldn't go to anyone.

House opened his mouth to say something, but the words died inside a grumble and a sigh. He set the kit down on a table, turned his back on Chase, and reached for the buttons on his shirt. Chase bit back any expression of relief and approached slowly, waiting for House to indicate that it was okay for him to go near. House undid every single button without pulling the cloth away, then glanced at the waiting room door.

Chase offered, "We could go to the clinic, if you like. Find an empty exam room."

"No," House rasped. The word came too quickly and House bowed his head as soon as he said it because he must have known that Chase picked up on it. He shrugged the shirt from his shoulders but didn't take it off all the way. Then he sat down heavily on the arm of a chair without looking at Chase. "Just get it over with."

House's t-shirt was still on underneath, but the collar was too wide to hide the bite mark on his shoulder. Chase winced and ran his fingertips over the bruised skin.

House flinched and twisted to grab Chase's hand, his grip painful over Chase's smaller knuckles. "I said you could look. Not touch." Then he flung Chase's hand back at him and settled, trying to appear collected.

Chase nodded even though House wasn't looking at him anymore, and fought to keep his tone neutral. "The skin is broken. How long has it been since your last tetanus shot?"

House shifted toward him, surprised, and then craned his neck and struggled to see the mark for himself. "Oh." He frowned for a second, seemed on the verge of speaking, then focused his gaze back on the wall in front of him.

"House?"

"A couple of years."

"Okay." Chase nodded and resorted to doctor stuff just to distract himself from the mental image of Wilson, the friendly oncologist, actually biting someone like that. "We can get a cast of it too, while we're at it."

A peculiar expression stole over House's features, sort of like golem curling over his precious. "No. You're not cataloguing it."

Chase pressed his lips together, then started to protest.

"I said no!" House snapped. "It was just…he didn't _really_ mean to."

Chase couldn't help but laugh, though it was a mean sound. "Are you listening to yourself? House, if a clinic patient said that sort of thing to you, you'd – "

"He's sick, okay?"

Chase bit off the rest of his comment and sighed. "Yeah. But I think we have different definitions of the word 'sick' right now."

House shot him an unappreciative look, but he couldn't hold it; he ended up staring abstractly at the wall again. "Just give me the shot." He half turned in Chase's direction again, his eyes flickering between the door and Chase's face. "And then go get his blood. I want to run titres before I go home."

This insistence of House's to detach, to pretend it was just some case, was starting to wear thin, but Chase was more concerned than anything else, so he played along. "Alright, wait here. I'll be back with the booster and a first aid kit." He paused in the act of turning. "Anything else I should bring? Did he…you know…?" He rolled his hands in the air to snare answers.

House scrunched a bit, but he responded evenly by repeating his earlier refrain. "It wasn't like that."

"What _was_ it like?" When House's shoulders folded farther inward, Chase added, "I need to know, as your doctor. If there's a chance of…of transmission…"

"You don't need to screen me for STD's," House barked, but there was little true anger to it.

Though Chase suspected otherwise, he merely nodded and left. He wasn't sure how far he could push House before House pushed back, _really_ pushed back. Wilson, apparently, could push as hard as he liked; Chase was emphatically _not_ on a par with Wilson.

The trip to the clinic took less than ten minutes; Chase stopped by his locker as well to grab his medical bag and throw on street clothes before hurrying back down the hall to the surgical waiting room. When he cracked the door open, House hadn't moved any more than necessary to pull his pills from his pocket. Chase couldn't tell if he had already taken one, or if he was just holding the bottle the way young children clutched stuffed animals.

Chase shut the door behind him and locked it; no use having someone walk in unawares and start berating them with well-meant but ill-advised questions. At the sound of the latch, House jerked and shot a terrified look over his shoulder. He relaxed as soon as he saw Chase, but not all the way. Chase dragged a puffy chair up beside House's and perched on the arm rest while he dug in his bag for a stethoscope.

"What are you doing?"

"Giving you a physical." Chase stuck the ends in his ears and held up the chest piece for House to see. "Turn around and round your back for me."

House scowled at him and made no move to comply. "What the hell is that gonna prove? I'm not having a heart attack."

Careful to sound neutral and disinterested, Chase replied, "I think you're in shock. Round your back."

House appeared to unravel Chase's demeanor in five seconds flat, but he didn't seem to know what to make of it. After making a face at nothing in particular, he put his back to Chase and rounded it.

Chase took the opportunity to grasp House's shoulder on the pretense of holding him in place. The flinch went unacknowledged, but Chase could feel the fine shiver coursing all along the surface of House's skin; he buzzed like a live wire laid bare. "Your heart rate's elevated," Chase reported softly. "And your breath sloughs." He moved his hand from House's shoulder to his neck, to gauge the temperature of uncovered skin. He was not prepared for the way House shied and crinkled in on himself when he felt Chase's fingers touch him in what would otherwise be an intimate manner. Chase withdrew immediately. "You're cold, House; it's official. You're shocky."

"Just stop with the analyzing," House replied, his tone pleading.

Chase nodded only because he had never heard House speak like that before, and it scared him. "Okay. Take your top shirt off so I can give you the shot."

"Okay." House started to pull his arm through a cuff, but he had forgotten about the Vicodin bottle clenched in his fist. He paused when his hand got stuck and stared at it for a moment.

"Here." Chase reached around him and pried the pills from his hand, then fumbled to undo the cuff buttons. House sat there, impassive, and let Chase help. Then he dragged his arms from the sleeves. Chase draped the shirt over the back of House's chair, then turned back. His eyes widened and he grabbed one of House's wrists without thinking.

House twisted at Chase's sudden movement and he ended up falling off the arm of the chair. He landed in a contorted ball on the cushion with a startled yelp. "Leggo!"

Chase lost his grip on House's wrist, but he managed to catch at House's fingers before he could yank his hand back. They both froze for a moment and Chase gaped at the purplish bruises spread over the dorsal surface of House's wrist. The arc of colored skin ended on either side of House's pulse point. He shook his head and breathed, "House…"

House appeared just as surprised by the marks, and he reached up to trace them with his other hand, dazed.

Chase noticed similar bruising on his other wrist and internally winced. He wished he were anybody else right now so that he didn't have to try to wrap his head around this. The thickness in his throat could have come from either nausea or pity, or both; he swallowed it. "House, you need to tell me what happened. All of it."

House's eyes lost focus and then traced Chase's arm until their gazes met, his face slack. He glanced again at his wrist and then abruptly pulled his fingers free. Though he appeared uncomfortable, he neither spoke nor attempted to relieve the uneasy feel to the air. Then he stated, "I hit my head too." He pawed at the crown of his head and then parted his hair so that Chase could see the small cut.

"You have to tell somebody. House, he's – "

"He didn't force me to do anything," House snapped. The animation that had been lacking up until then returned in full force and he straightened himself in the chair, his movements angry. "I could have left. He gave me the choice. Now quit melting back there and give me the damn shot so I can go back to my office." He lapsed into a sullen brood and glared across the room, his left heel rhythmically tapping the carpet.

Chase nodded because he knew better than to argue at this point. He swabbed House's arm with a steri-wipe, then administered the booster. When House started to heave himself to his feet, though, Chase leaned on his shoulder to shove him back down and probed around the wound on his scalp. It was only a small laceration, but Chase took the time to clean it anyway. "There. All done. Do you want a sedative? Something light to calm you down?"

"I have alcohol for that." House planted his cane and stood on shaky legs; Chase wondered at that but let it go as he watched House don his button-down and close it up to the collar. House's voice had gone flat again by the time he said, "I still need to you to get Wilson's blood."

House didn't seem to grasp the inadvisability of leaving Chase alone with Wilson and a fistful of needles. But again, Chase left his thoughts unsaid. Instead, he pulled a red lollipop from his pocket and waved it under House's nose to get his attention. He wanted to make some sort of joke about a sucker for a sucker, but under the circumstances, he merely smiled.

House's eyes fixed on the lollipop and he almost smirked. Almost. The halfway expression was a surprise to Chase; House's face looked soft, bemused…nice, even. For a second there, he looked like a really big, solemn, grey-haired kid suffering from the unexpected kindness of a stranger. It was startling.

Chase tried not to stare too obviously as House reached out and palmed the sucker, plucking it from Chase's grasp. When he turned away, he still wore that expression of wry amusement, and Chase couldn't help but peer after him as House limped to the door and unlocked it.

House paused, facing the hallway. "You'll get the blood?"

Was that all the man cared about? Diagnosing Wilson? "Yeah." Chase sighed, wondering how a misanthrope like House could come to care so much about one person as to subject himself to this sort of abuse. "I'll get the blood."

House nodded and then slipped out, leaving Chase alone to ponder the mess he had landed in.

* * *

Wilson was buried in paperwork and patient files when Chase walked in without knocking. He looked up from a series of CAT scans and pierced Chase with a slightly confused but irritated look. "Chase? What are you doing here?"

Chase swallowed his first retort, which was less verbal and more inclined to fist-flying. That would not have helped matters. Instead, he sedately turned his back and shut the door before stalking up to Wilson's side of the desk and dropping the blood draw kit on top of his work. "House sent me to get blood." Too bad Chase couldn't take it the way he really wanted to, but the blood needed to be sterile and confined to little plastic tubes, not splattered all over the front of Wilson's shirt from a spectacularly broken nose. "Roll up your sleeve."

Wilson leaned back in his chair to glare up at Chase's invasion of his personal space. "What, House is too busy playing video games to come get it himself?"

"No," Chase chirped. He busied himself with laying out his supplies; Wilson's put-upon, holier-than-thou demeanor had never irritated him as much as did right then. "He's too busy worrying about what might happen to him alone in a closed room with you."

Wilson's head twitched and he narrowed his eyes. "Excuse me?"

That was it; no amount of cool could keep the anger from Chase's voice. He threw the blood vials on the desk and turned to regard Wilson, crossing his arms tightly over his chest to keep his hands from doing anything stupid. No matter what Wilson had done, he couldn't just beat the crap out of a department head. "You drew blood, you bastard. I couldn't even touch him without him freaking out."

The color drained from Wilson's face, though not for the reasons Chase originally thought. "I hurt him?" Wilson breathed. His hands dropped to the armrests of his chair and he stared past Chase to the balcony door, stunned. "But…he didn't say anything."

Chase tried not to simmer down, but the blatant shock on Wilson's face forced him to wonder if maybe he had gotten it wrong after all. Maybe House hadn't just been rationalizing earlier. "There were bruises on his wrists," Chase went on in an attempt to maintain the righteous indignation he had stormed in with. "Like you held him down."

"No!" Wilson replied, his eyes returning to search Chase's face. "No, I told him he could leave – I didn't force him – he just did it! I never – " He broke off and his eyes flickered over the room at random.

Either Wilson was really good at faking, or he hadn't actually realized that he had gone too far. Chase shifted his weight and reminded himself that this wasn't the first time. He conjured up House's voice, pleading in a nightmare to wake up.

And then Wilson damned himself by saying, "He asked me to stop at first, but I – "

"But what?" Chase exploded, and Wilson flinched as Chase straightened to tower over him. "You thought he didn't mean it? You thought it was okay to make him feel like he owed you something, like he's a piece of crap and he should feel lucky that you want anything to do with him at all?" Chase scoffed and snatched up a tourniquet as he muttered, "You're pathetic."

"I… No?" Wilson rolled up his sleeve automatically when Chase brandished the tourniquet at him.

"You just thought he should earn your blood or something?" Chase went on. He tied the rubber tube too tight on a passive-aggressive impulse. "Christ, Wilson. He was still shaking when I left him. He's convinced he should be flattered that you chose _him_ to abuse."

Wilson didn't seem to notice what Chase was doing until the needle jabbed the crook of his elbow. "Ow! Fuck."

"Oops." Chase put on his best innocent face, which he had learned from House, ironically enough. Then he pulled the needle back out. With an _aw, shucks_ smile, he shrugged and explained, "Missed the vein."

"You know, it's not like he didn't get something out of it."

Chase looked up and made a valiant attempt not to gape, the needle hovering over Wilson's exposed vein. "You traded blood and an MRI for the opportunity to pretty much molest him?"

Wilson's brows drew down, his expression darkening. "I didn't 'molest' him. And no, it wasn't a trade."

Chase blew out a sharp breath and concentrated on getting the needle in correctly this time. If he left with nothing else, he wanted the blood. House had paid for it; the least Chase could do was make sure he at least got that much. "So, what was it then? Payback? He steal your lunch one time too many?"

"You don't get it," Wilson snapped. "He reciprocated."

"Yeah," Chase said dubiously. "I'm sure he did." He slid a plastic vial onto the end of the plastic tubing and watched it fill, turning it as the blood ran in.

Wilson looked away and drummed his fingers on his desk while Chase monopolized his other arm. "It wasn't like that," he insisted, but he appeared troubled.

"And the first time? When you drugged him up to his eyeballs and made him think it was an hallucination?" Chase pinched the tubing and replaced the full vial with a fresh one, then stared as it turned crimson too. "Did he reciprocate then?"

For the first time since Chase had entered, Wilson appeared chagrined. "That was a mistake," he said slowly. "And I talked to him, and he said it was okay."

"He'd say anything to keep you from leaving," Chase pointed out. As if he needed to, as if Wilson hadn't figured that out on his own and decided to use it against House. "He's so terrified to risk driving you off that he's letting you get away with all of this just to make sure you stay. That doesn't make it right. You should know that."

Wilson just shook his head. "I _do _know." And that was all he said.

Chase gave him a hard look. "You _do_ know," he mimicked. "Then why do you keep doing it?"

"I…wanted to."

Chase continued staring. "Are you daft? You think you can just do whatever you want to him, and it's okay?"

"I…" Wilson's eyebrows inched upwards, and then he shook his head with a heavy sigh. "I have no idea what I think. _He_ does whatever he wants."

Chase wasn't sure what to make of that, and he certainly wasn't about to let Wilson off the hook; he recalled the way House had shied from his hand. Just to see what Wilson would say, Chase offered, "House thinks you're sick."

Wilson's shoulders moved in a noncommittal shrug. "Yeah, he told me. But I feel fine."

Chase moved onto his third vial and tried hard not to feel creeped out by this whole affair. He suddenly wondered if he was actually making the situation worse. If Wilson were faking, if this were an act for Chase's benefit, then what might he decide to do in retaliation next time he got House alone somewhere? Chase ignored the chill in his stomach and switched out the last vial in silence, stealing quick, furtive glances at Wilson's blank face. Wilson was preoccupied with his view across the balcony. Following his gaze, Chase could make out House hunched in front of his computer, plucking out something or other, unaware of Wilson watching him with such intensity.

Chase swore inwardly and finished up without bothering to say anything else. He deposited his supplies in the carrier and undid the tourniquet before pulling his last vial off and drawing the needle from Wilson's arm. Wilson looked down long enough to put his fingers over the cotton swab that Chase pressed into the crook of his arm, then resumed his silent study of his so-called best friend. Chase simply left, sans parting remark, and strode down the hall to House's office. His first act, after plunking the freshly drawn blood down on House's desk, was to pass behind House's chair and draw the blinds over the balcony door.

House shot him a curious look, but it didn't appear to occur to him that Wilson's surveillance should bother him. He turned immediately to the blood kit and plucked the four vials from their places. A grim sort of triumph washed over his features as he hauled himself upright and reached for his cane, the blood prize clutched in his fist. "Cool. Go home before Cameron gets pissed."

Chase glanced uneasily at the balcony door, then trailed House out of the office.

They both stopped at the elevator and House cast him a sidelong look. "Why are you following me? I don't have any more biscuits – Kutner ate them all."

"I'm not leaving you alone in the lab after hours while Wilson's in the building." Plain, to-the-point, no room for argument.

Of course, House could argue with anything. "I can take care of myself." He faced the elevator again and shifted his weight off his right leg.

Chase had learned the hard way that House could verbally out-spar anyone, so he kept his peace and simply refused to leave. It seemed like House may have appreciated his presence after all, because he didn't comment on it again. That was as close as House would get to admitting that he was glad to have the company, or that he really was afraid.

They blew through the tests before midnight rolled around; Chase ended up doing all the work, as per usual, but he didn't mind for once. Once the readouts became available, he tore them from the printer and scanned through the levels. "White count's a little low but not abnormal; it's probably not an infection. And his blood sugar's off, but not enough to cause a shift in personality."

House spun all the way around on his stool before puffing his cheeks out and speculating, "As in, it's close to dinner time and he hasn't eaten since lunch?"

Chase nodded his agreement. "Yeah."

He passed the results to House, who devoured them with his eyes and then cast them aside, irate. "Useless," he muttered, then jutted his chin at the centrifuge. "What about the PCR's?"

"Not done yet." Chase sat back down and clasped his hands between his knees, his feet propped on the bottom rung of the stool. "What if you don't find anything?"

House glared at the ceiling and started twirling his cane. "Then I'll keep looking."

"For how long?" Chase pressed. "Until he hits you? Breaks a bone?"

"I'm not afraid of him hurting me."

"You should be," Chase said.

House shook his head, then bit his lip and trained his eyes on the floor. His cane came to a rest, horizontal, and House laid it across his knees. "Doesn't matter. I have to fix him."

"You're not responsible for fixing him."

House looked up long enough for Chase to see the sadness that lingered on his face. "Then who is?" He bowed his head again, his chin touched to his chest. "I'm everybody's last resort. If I can't figure it out, no one else will."

Chase snorted. "And you think _Wilson _has a messiah complex?"

"It's not a complex if it's true." House raised his head again but he didn't look at Chase. "It's not an ego thing," he stated with obvious distaste. "I don't want to be the end of the line, but I am. People think I'm some sort of…of diagnostic god." He made a face at the world in general, thereby calling them all idiots in the process. "It's not my fault they think that, and if I just ignore it, then people die. Nobody takes on the patients I can't cure – they just don't bother." His voice took on a troubling tone of self-mockery. "Gregory House, wunderkind. Solves everything with his white board and his markers, and plays with his fuzzy lacrosse ball in the dark. Nobody compares. Nobody even _tries_. Even my fellows don't bother to try anymore. Stupid…" He trailed off but kept grumbling under his breath without words.

Chase took a preparatory breath. For what must have been the twentieth time, he asked, "Are you okay?"

"Yes!" House dug his thumb and forefinger into the corners of his eyes, bridging his nose. "Stop asking me that. I don't need you to coddle me – I don't need you at all!"

Chase averted his eyes, but pushed ahead. "Do you blame me for asking? You were in shock six hours ago. You – "

"I wasn't in shock; I had too many Vicodin, I was shaky – "

"Vicodin would slow your heart rate, not elevate it. So now you're lying – "

"You're an idiot! You think you know what's going on, but you haven't the faintest – "

"Then _tell me_!" Chase shouted. He stood up but checked himself before he advanced because House didn't react fast enough to prevent the flinch. "Tell me what's going on, explain it! Because right now, it looks like he raped you _at least_ once, and now he's manipulating you and using you – he _hurt_ you! He left marks, House. He – "

"Stop it! Just stop!"

Chase's voice died in his throat, but he forced himself to croak, "There's only so much I can do."

House looked at him then, his eyes smoldering under darkened brows. He hardly ever truly lost his temper, but Chase had seen him come close a half dozen times, including this one. He had pushed too hard, as the low quality of House's voice attested. "I didn't ask you to get involved – I told you to stay out of it. You're the one who wouldn't get lost."

"Why won't you turn him in?"

House turned away to suck on his lower lip for a second, then he glared at Chase anew. "Go home. I don't need your help anymore."

"House, I'm not – "

"Get out!" House slid off the stool and for a second, Chase thought he might get manhandled out of the lab. He remained seated, though, and House stopped within reach, visibly shaking with some combination of wrath and something else. Finally, House simply asked, "Why do you care?"

Chase's eyebrows climbed upward. "Are you serious?"

House's head tilted downward; if he were wearing his reading glasses, he'd be peering at Chase over top of them.

Chase flared his nostrils and looked away, crossing his arms. "You tried to do something nice for me once. I owe you." He glanced back to find House contemplating him as if he were a new case to puzzle through. Then House pivoted on his good leg and hauled himself back onto his stool without so much as a snort for a response.

They sat in awkward silence while the centrifuge did it's business, and then House grumbled, "Thanks."

Chase smiled while House fidgeted with a row of glass test tubes and pretended that he hadn't just expressed gratitude. His amusement quickly faded. "I'm not going to let him keep hurting you, House."

"You don't really have a choice in the matter. Doctor-patient privilege."

"Like hell," Chase exhorted. "They can take my license for all I care."

House swiveled on his stool and gazed at Chase in genuine confusion. "Don't be an idiot. I'm not worth you fire-bombing your career."

"You're the idiot if you really think that."

House shook his head. "You'll be throwing away your future over nothing. I'll deny everything and the disciplinary board will revoke your license anyway. Don't bother."

Chase scoffed. "You really are an idiot."

"Takes one to know one," House retorted.

The centrifuge chimed and shut off, and House whirled to face the computer monitor. He hit a few keys and the results popped up. Chase stayed where he was but watched the graph sketch out over House's shoulder.

Once the readout completed, House's entire frame sagged on the stool. "It's not toxoplasmosis. It's not anything," House reported, dejected.

Chase felt for him, but he hadn't expected the PCR to turn anything up. "House, he's not sick."

"I still have an MRI scheduled. It could be a brain tumor or something degenerative like Parkinson's…but there's no resting tremor. Maybe I should get an EEG too. He could have an undiagnosed seizure disorder, electrical abnormalities…"

"House."

House made a defeated face without turning around; Chase could see the reflection of it on the computer screen. With a sigh, House switched off the centrifuge and closed out of the computer program. "Humor me," he said, but his voice cracked halfway through.

"For how long? How much is enough?"

"I dunno," House admitted. Then he stood up, leaning unsteadily on his cane. "I'm going home."

Chase watched him hobble from the room, his nose prickling. He didn't know what to do; House's predicament left him twisted in knots. As House disappeared into the elevator, Chase turned to regard the remaining vials of blood. They had only used two. Chase glanced over his shoulder and considered following House but Wilson was surely gone by now; it was nearly midnight. Instead, Chase mashed his hands into his eyes to clear the exhaustion from the them and snagged the remainder of Wilson's blood. A genetic profile for common conditions might yield a clue, something like a predisposition to early-onset Alzheimer's or something else that could cause dementia in a forty-something male. He didn't really think that Wilson was ill, but it would take Moses parting oceans to prove that to House. So he set out about running gels, resigned to the need to retain House's trust, rather than turn on him for his own good. House was right. If Chase said something, all House had to do was deny it. And that wouldn't help anyone, least of all House.

But Chase didn't have to like it, and no way in hell was he going to just leave House and Wilson to their own devices. Once the first set of gels started to run, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a familiar number - one he hadn't used since House fired him. A few rings later, a sleepy voice mumbled some sort of irritated greeting into Chase's ear.

"Foreman? It's Chase. I need to talk to you."

--tbc...


	8. Chapter 8

Wilson waited in the parking lot, his car switched off and his fingers curled around a hot cup of coffee that steamed a patch of his windshield foggy above the dashboard. House limped into view around the side of the building, his backpack slung over one shoulder. He stopped near the bus bench to peer over the tops of cars at Wilson's labeled parking space, but Wilson had moved back to the visitor's area. He watched as House decided that all was well and limped over to his motorcycle, but Chase appeared at the side entrance and ran forward to waylay him.

Wilson watched them both pause near House's motorcycle, and it looked like they were arguing. Chase probably wanted to drive him home because the roads were iffy, and House being House didn't want to leave his Repsol in the hospital parking lot over night. The two of them gesticulated a bit and then Chase's posture changed as he capitulated. They nodded at each other, exchanged pleasantries of some sort, and then Chase strode back into the hospital. Wilson waited until he had moved out of sight and then climbed out of his car, his coffee forgotten on his dashboard.

Wilson crossed the parking lot as House clipped his cane to his bike, and then he stopped, hidden behind cars in the shadows between pole lights. What the hell was he doing? House could have friends – he _should_ have friends. Wilson had wanted him to make friends for years, ever since the infarction left him nasty and unapproachable. Why should Wilson object now?

By the time Wilson returned to the moment, House had mounted the bike and pulled his helmet on. Wilson ducked down as House looked around and gunned the engine, then revved out of the space and down the aisle to the street. Once the whir of the bike died away, Wilson straightened and shuffled wearily back to his car. He folded himself back into the driver's seat but didn't bother pulling his left leg in after him. He just sat there for a second, stunned, trying to figure out what the hell was going on with him.

Eventually, Wilson drove home and dragged himself up to his apartment, but he stopped with his key in the door. He didn't want to be in there, surrounded by his perfect order and the scent of Amber on the walls, staring at the ceiling until morning broke. But he only had one other place to go, one place that wasn't his sterile office at the hospital or an over-starched comforter on a hotel room bed.

That's why he should object, Wilson realized. His hand fell to his side, key ring and all, and he headed back to his car. The drive was blessedly short, just under ten minutes, and he parallel parked in front of 221B, across the sidewalk from House's chained-up motorcycle. The windows above him were dark but Wilson still had his key. He crept inside and quietly opened House's apartment door, glad that the building crew kept everything clean and well-oiled; not a sound could be heard aside from the rustle of Wilson's clothes.

It seemed both alien and comfortably normal for Wilson to be there in the middle of the night. He removed his shoes because that was the polite thing to do when entering someone else's home, and padded softly through the apartment to House's bedroom. He paused on the threshold to take in the sight of his friend sprawled out across the bed, fast asleep and breathing in a slight shush of sound as a prelude to snoring. It made Wilson smile a bit to see him like that, peaceful. Like before. Like that night Wilson had stood in here and seen him curled up on one side, molded to the bed, serene at last as the pain receded and he fell to rest. Wilson had done that for him – had made him feel better, painless. For a while there, Wilson had been the only one who could do that.

"House?" Wilson stepped into the room and observed him from the foot of the bed before he circled it and drew even with House's torso. After thinking better of it, Wilson smoothed out a section of the blanket and sat down in the concavity near House's stomach. Wilson still wore his coat and winter apparel, and he played with the frayed edge of his checkered scarf while he listened to House breathe. "It wasn't really that bad, was it?" He looked up but House was still asleep. A faint odor of bourbon reached Wilson's nose. He didn't like it all that much, so he leaned over to try to find that other scent, the warm summer porch smell that he remembered so vividly.

"House." The name was barely a breath in the dark room, but it stirred the hair at House's temple. Wilson reached out to touch it and smoothed it back down. House's skin was warm and soft, dry in a good way. He smelled freshly showered, and the soap masked the musk that Wilson was searching for. This disappointed Wilson, but he couldn't hold bathing against House. His clothes probably still smelled right, though. Wilson peeled back the edge of the blanket and bent farther down. Yes, there it was. He smiled and inhaled a deep drought of sleepy-House's Pink Floyd t-shirt, the top of his head tickling House's chin.

House stirred and Wilson looked up as House cracked sleepy eyes open. He focused on Wilson without recognition, then started.

"I want to go home."

House stared at him, unmoving. Their faces were too close. "Did you stop taking your meds?"

Wilson simply nodded.

Was that relief that suffused House's features? "When?"

"When I met Amber."

House's eyes roamed at random and he drew a deep breath, raising himself on his elbows.

"But I started them again. When she died."

"Wilson – "

"Chase said I hurt you." He reached out a tentative finger and traced the mark on the top of House's right wrist, the one nearest him. "I just…wanted…something familiar."

House pulled his hand out from under Wilson's fingers. "What are you taking? How much?"

"I'm not sick."

"Yes you are," House sighed, weary but not.

Wilson reached out again but House scooted backwards, away, out of reach on the other side of the bed. With a sigh, Wilson folded his hands and then concentrated on picking at them. "Can I stay here?"

"No." Just enough emotion slipped out to lend incredulity to House's tone.

"I just want to sleep. I can't sleep anymore."

"What are you taking?"

"Anafranil."

House nodded. "Tricyclic antidepressants can suppress REM sleep. It could also cause delusions and schizotypal behavior. But if you were taking them before, then the odds of you having this sort of side effect are – "

Wilson's voice hardened and a fine tension gripped him. "I'm not schizophrenic."

"I didn't say you were." House's voice was still soft, soothing in a way that he normally didn't allow for. He was trying to keep Wilson calm, trying to manipulate him, but he was scared; Wilson could see it in his eyes, even in the dark.

Wilson sat up and turned his back on House. The wall in front of him bore a criss-cross of shadows from the branches outside House's window. "Why do I have to be sick or – or crazy? Why can't I just want you? It's not like you have any room to object. You keep driving people off."

"Wilson – "

Wilson twisted to look at him, helpless against a growing anger. "What if you kill someone else? I can't risk that. I can't risk making you jealous again – people are just gonna get hurt."

House shook his head and looked around the room.

"Your cane's over here." Wilson touched the handle leaning against his side of the mattress. "You think you need a weapon? I'm not doing anything you didn't ask for."

The situation was rapidly spiraling out of House's control, but Wilson didn't think he could do anything about that. The scent that wafted from the bed, just a harmless mix of House and gentle dreams – it took him back, vividly. House was attractive in his own way; Wilson already knew that. "I wish you wouldn't fight so much. You want it too."

"Maybe…maybe once," House admitted, though it appeared to pain him to say so out loud. "But you… No. Just no, Wilson." His eyes scanned the items within reach again.

Wilson stood and turned to climb across the bed. "House – "

An indeterminate sound escaped House's lips as he scrambled to toss the covers aside and get out of bed. Wilson prevented that by throwing the blankets back over him and pinning him under them. House squirmed, his limbs trapped in a comforter, but only for a second. Then he went limp and just stared up at Wilson, trying to hide the panic that leaked from his blue eyes. Too blue, Wilson thought. So blue they hurt. He remembered seeing them shine with unshed tears, how the irises crystallized, like liquid ice. Or sugar. Yes, like shards of that sugary rock candy that kids bought at amusement parks. The kind he made in a science class once, in a beaker on a string. Sweet, jagged blue. Or copper chloride. Those are the hardest fireworks to make – the blue ones. Heat destroys the chemical, burns out the blue. How could his eyes stay so blue?

"You must take magnesium supplements," Wilson offered. He figured he should say something since it's not polite to just stare at someone. And James Wilson was nothing if not well-mannered. "So the blue doesn't fade."

House's breath caught. "Wilson?"

Wilson smiled fondly. "You're not so bad," he decided. "I could get used to having just you."

House's lips parted a fraction and he struggled weakly against the blanket that restrained him. Wilson watched his breathing speed up. Most people probably wouldn't have noticed, but Wilson was a doctor; it was his job to notice things like that. "Calm down, House. It's okay." Wilson brushed the backs of his fingers across the prickly surface of House's cheek. "I won't hurt you again. I really didn't mean to hurt you. You should have said something."

"So, that whole part where I asked you knock it the fuck off – that didn't count as me saying something?"

Wilson's temper flared and he drew his hand back. House squinched his eyes shut and tensed, but Wilson stopped himself before he struck. Don't hurt him. Can't hurt him – he didn't want to cause pain. He just wanted to not be alone anymore. Wilson unclenched his fist and dropped his hand back to House's face, gently caressing the long curve of his neck.

House gasped and made a startled sound, then his eyes flew open to regard Wilson again. "Wilson, think for a second." House was a hair's breadth from begging, and only Wilson had ever heard him take that tone before. Or at least, he thought so; he couldn't imagine House letting anyone else see that degree of vulnerability.

Wilson felt pride at that, and it rendered him docile. He could spare a moment for conversation with his best friend. He and House used to talk all the time. "About what?"

"About what you're doing," House exhorted. "I don't want this. I'm sorry if you think…if I've ruined your personal life. I'm sorry. But what you're doing – this isn't you. You're acting…"

Wilson narrowed his eyes. "Acting what? Finish the sentence."

House seemed to think that he'd gone to far and he clammed up, his nostrils flaring.

"Acting what, House?" Wilson seized a handful of House's hair and ignored the way he recoiled, not that he could go anywhere.

"That hurts," House grunted, his form contorted beneath Wilson and the blankets in a vain attempt to elude his grasp. "You said you wouldn't."

Wilson snatched his hand back as if it had been burned. He watched House open his eyes again and blink back the pale fear. Magnesium-laden fear. "I'm…House, I'm…"

"Let me go." House couldn't keep his voice steady, couldn't even lend it much force beyond a breath and a hint of baritone. His eyes had grown wide, tremulous, but he held Wilson's gaze the way he always did, unwavering, except for the crystal. "Wilson…" His voice dropped to a desperate whisper. "Let me go."

Wilson shook his head, but not to deny House's request; it was just disbelief, that gesture. House took it the wrong way, though, and he hiccupped as he held back the impulse to pant. Crystal spilled and he looked away, and Wilson broke, shied, hurried to withdraw to the free side of the bed, and then to the floor. "I'm sorry – sorry, House, I'm sorry." Wilson couldn't look this time – couldn't bear the wetness he caused. He hurt House. He couldn't hurt House; House needed to be protected, not hurt. House was the only thing left, the only person, the barrier between Wilson and a firm grasp on nothing.

Wilson needed to go back to his apartment, take his pills, lay down – he had to sleep. He couldn't make sense of this, of hurting House, of causing him pain. No matter what House had done to him, he couldn't drive off the last person left. Wilson retreated, paused in the bedroom doorway, wrung his scarf between his hands, and then kept going. House was right – he needed to take his medication. And if he didn't sleep enough, it would start to show – he'd fray, and he'd say things he shouldn't, and –

Wilson shoved his stocking feet into his loafers and wrenched the door open. He got all the way to his car before he turned and ran back inside to lock House's apartment door. Anybody might get in if he didn't. God, what the hell was he thinking? Maybe House was right – he needed an MRI, something was wrong, he couldn't stop himself from acting on impulse, from getting angry, from wanting to hit something –

Wilson's fist slammed the green-painted door before he knew what he was doing, and his thoughts ground to a screeching halt. Fuck, that hurt. He turned his hand over to examine the meaty part of his palm. The skin was red but not ruptured. He might bruise. That was fine – House had bruises too. Don't think about that. How could he have left marks on his best friend like that?

The chill air bit Wilson's exposed skin as he exited the building a second time. His car waited right there at the curb and he climbed in. He waited the five minutes that it took to warm it up, then turned on the heat and buckled his seat belt. He stared at the dashboard lights without really seeing them, then reached to shift gears. He had to leave. Now. He had to go before his temper got the best of him, or the meds wore off… He had to go.

* * *

Chase straightened on the bench as Foreman's SUV turned into the hospital parking lot. He hadn't been certain that Foreman would actually come; it was just past two in the morning, and Foreman had seemed dismissive on the phone even as he agreed to show up. Unfortunately, what Chase needed right now could not be accomplished during decent hours. He waited patiently for Foreman to park, and then strode up to his car with his hands in his pockets.

Foreman rolled down the window but left the car running; heat spilled out to bathe Chase's frozen body. "Okay, so what the hell couldn't wait until morning? And where's House?"

"He's not here." Chase put his hand on the edge of the window so that Foreman couldn't roll it back up without catching Chase's fingers. "I need you to pick a lock for me."

"Excuse me?" Foreman scoffed and shook his head in disbelief. "Tell House that if he wants me to break into his patient's home, he can tell me in the morning."

"Foreman – "

"No. I'm not his pitiful little lapdog. You, on the other hand – you don't even work for him anymore. Why the hell are you still pandering to him?"

Chase took a deep breath to force down his exasperation. He already knew that Foreman didn't like House. In fact, Foreman's opinion of House's usefulness probably coincided with House's opinion of himself. "He doesn't actually know I called you. It's not about his patient."

That may not have convinced Foreman to help, but it did intrigue him enough to keep him from peeling out of there. "So…you're spying on Cameron? Want me to break into her locker?"

"I want you to break into the psychiatry wing," Chase replied. He tried not to roll his eyes or insult Foreman, at least not too badly. Working apart had not in any way diminished their dislike of each other, but Foreman had certain useful skills, which was why House had hired him in the first place. "The records room. I need a file."

Foreman studied him for a second, and then switched off the ignition. He settled back, his gaze piercing the windshield. "Okay. Whatever this is, I – "

"I need Wilson's file. It's important."

"I was right." Foreman jabbed his keys in Chase's direction. "You _are_ doing this for House. He's obsessing – "

"Somebody's abusing him," Chase interrupted.

Foreman's voice died for a second. "Who, Wilson?"

Chase merely shook his head. He didn't know how much to tell Foreman, but he had to stop short of breaking his oath. Plus, the less Foreman knew, the better the chance he would stay interested. Say what he would about House, but Foreman was cursed by the exact same insatiable curiosity.

Foreman's brows shot up. "House? You think someone's abusing House?"

"I _know_ someone is." Chase's voice lowered of its own accord.

"Yeah right." Foreman moved to roll up the window.

Chase thwarted him by stuffing his head and shoulders in the car. Foreman started and jerked back. "You have to believe me. _Please_, Foreman. This isn't a game."

Foreman studied him for a second, then appeared to decide to play along for now. "And you think Wilson knows who it is?" Foreman looked out the windshield again.

"If anybody would know…" Chase shrugged. It wasn't a lie so much as a misdirection.

"So…you're thinking that House won't do anything about it, and Wilson knows it's going on, but he can't _make_ House do anything about it, so he feels guilty and spills it to his psychiatrist." Foreman shot Chase a penetrating glare. "You're hiding something. First off, House wouldn't let anybody touch him, except for maybe a prostitute." He turned introspective and bit amused. "Is it a pimp? House short some working girl?"

Chase glowered and bit his tongue long enough to let his angry retort fizzle in the back of his brain. "It's not like that. House didn't do anything for once."

"Who, then? I know half the population of Princeton would love to break his cane over his head, but House would call the cops if he had a problem. The only person he _might_ brush it off from would be Wilson."

"I know." Chase tried to make it clear with his stare that Foreman should run with that thought in silence.

Foreman did, and his face changed. "You don't think...no. House is screwed up, but not _that_ screwed up. And Wilson's a puppy dog. If he was gonna do something to House, he would have done it when Amber died."

"I'm House's attending," Chase cut in. "Doctor-patient relationship forbids me – "

"You treated him." Foreman leaned closer to the window and Chase drew his hand back. "You have proof?"

With an uncomfortable sigh, Chase looked down. "I don't actually have any evidence."

Foreman rolled his eyes and his earlier interest faded. "You're playing me. Good one. You can tell House all about how you dragged me out here in the middle – "

"If House knew I called you, he'd have my license revoked." Chase stepped back to the window and grasped it with both hands this time. "Foreman, I saw the marks, and it's not a one-time thing. House won't let me tell anyone. He thinks Wilson's sick or off his meds or – I dunno – harmlessly deranged. My hands are tied here. I just need something I can fight back with before it happens again." He let a note of pleading seep into his voice. "I'm begging you. Just help me get his file."

Foreman stared at him, scrutinizing his frame with perhaps a tenth of the intensity that House employed. "What, exactly, are we talking about? They got into a fist fight? Wilson pushed him?"

"I can't tell you," Chase replied. "Believe me, I really want to, but if he finds out… He barely trusts me as it is."

"Look, if you expect me to commit a felony for you, I'm gonna need a better explanation." Foreman shifted in his seat and then thumbed the seat belt off. "So spill it, because I can't picture House taking crap from anybody. And if they had a brawl, then maybe House deserved it. Hell, House could probably take Wilson, drunk and crippled or not. I just don't see how - "

"It wasn't a fist fight," Chase said, his voice edged in steel. Foreman turned sober in response to his tone. "And at least one of the times, House was drugged. Wilson shot him full of morphine. I saw the needle he used."

"One of the times…" Foreman seemed to lose some breath, and he glanced away for a second. "You're…you don't think…"

"Yeah." Chase couldn't be absolutely sure of how Foreman planned to finish that, but whatever he thought probably hit close to the mark.

"And it's still going on?" Foreman asked, disbelieving. "As in, right now?"

Chase glanced at his hands, then pulled them back again. "Something happened just this afternoon. I dunno what; House wouldn't tell me. But he had bruises. On his wrists." Chase met Foreman's incredulous glance from under the edges of his hair. "Like somebody held him down."

Foreman simply blinked at him, then he moved abruptly to stuff his key in the ignition. Chase started to argue with him to stay, but Foreman only turned the car on long enough to roll up his window. Then he climbed out and stood facing Chase. "You better not be lying to me."

"I'm not," Chase averred. "I wouldn't kid about something like this."

Foreman looked away with a sigh that bordered on exasperation. Maybe he was thinking that House was more trouble than he was worth, but Foreman had a compulsion to do the 'moral' thing just to prove that he was leagues away from becoming House. "Fine. Let's get this over with." They started across the parking lot. "I still think you're full of shit. House is probably just bored. He's playing you."

"He was in shock. You can't fake that."

"House can. I'm sure he practices it alone in his damn apartment, same way he fakes everything else he needs to just to get out of clinic duty."

Chase rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, I think he's got a better excuse than ever to avoid the clinic for a while."

"What?" Foreman stopped and pushed Chase's shoulder to turn him. "It happened here, in the hospital? In the _clinic_?"

"I checked the logs." Chase couldn't keep from looking smug; Foreman just looked so appalled. "They were both on duty, and Wilson signed them both out."

Foreman's eyes shot to one side, then back. "You're shittin' me. House wouldn't just let him get away with – "

"Can you picture House admitting to _anyone_ that his only friend, that _Wilson_, was hurting him?" Chase shifted his weight. "Scratch that. Can you picture anybody believing him if he tried to tell?"

Foreman gave an abortive shake of his head, then insisted, "House wouldn't put up with that. He's not that pathetic."

Chase didn't bother responding; he had already touted enough denials. His silence seemed the best answer, though, because Foreman's face soon turned troubled. They made their way to the psychiatry wing without another word.

* * *

Foreman swore at the door handle and stuck the paperclip in his mouth for safe keeping. Speaking around it, he demanded, "Gimme another bobby pin," and twittered his fingers up near Chase's waist.

"What makes you think I have an unending supply of these things?" And yet, as Chase said this, he was handing over another pin.

Foreman snorted and started bending it. "Cuz House is right." He shot Chase a sidelong look from the floor in front of the door, bemused. "You have pretty hair." Then he fought not to laugh.

Deadpan, Chase muttered, "I hate you."

Foreman merely snorted again, and then his face turned grave as he concentrated again on the lock. "This thing's a pain in the ass. We shoulda stolen the janitor's keys or something."

Chase's hip vibrated and he nearly climbed the wall in response.

With a wry upturn of his eyebrows, Foreman smirked.

"Shut up," Chase barked, fumbling to unclip his pager. He held it up to check the display, and a well of fear bubbled up in his gut when saw the 911 and House's home number. "That's not good." He cast Foreman a worried glance as he fished in his jacket for his cell phone and punched in House's number.

House picked up before the first ring went through. "_I have to find a hardware store._"

Chase expelled an exasperated breath and pinched the bridge of his nose. "A hardware store? You dropped me a 911 because you ran out of light bulbs or something?" He refused to admit how relieved he was to have House bother him for something trivial, though.

"_No, idiot._" House's voice reverberated over the line, like he was speaking from inside a closet or something. "_I need locks. Deadbolts and chains and crap._" He paused, and Chase could practically hear him trying on a casual expression even as Chase's own stomach belly-flopped on the psych wing floor. "_And yeah, I'm out of light bulbs._"

"What happened?" Chase touched Foreman's shoulder and gestured at him to hold off on the lock picking for a second. Foreman mouthed _House?_ and Chase nodded. "Was he there? Are you okay?"

"_Save the knight-in-shining-armor bit for Cameron._" House's voice shook, though; he couldn't hide that. "_Nothing happened. And by nothing, I actually mean nothing. He's off his meds - he said so._"

"House, I swear to god, if he did something and you're covering for him – "

"_I told you to knock it off. I'm fine._" He made an effort to control his breathing, and then muffled the receiver.

Chase wondered what House didn't want him to hear. "House? Where are you?"

A series of clicks and shuffles sounded over the line as House fitted the phone back to his ear. "_Bathroom. Bad sushi_."

By that, Chase assumed that House was hiding in his bathroom. He seemed to recall that it locked; he had thought it odd the last time he was over there. "Right. Look, I'm on my way, okay? Stay there."

House fell silent, then said, "_Okay._" The line went dead before Chase could respond.

Foreman rocked back on his heels, still crouched in front of the door. "I'll finish up here. We can compare notes in the morning."

"Right." Chase shifted a bit, then offered a grudging, "Thanks."

"No." Foreman stabbed a finger in his direction. "You're gonna spill it next time I see you. All of it. I'm not gonna be a part of this unless I know what's going on."

Though reluctant, Chase nodded. "But you can't tell anyone – not Thirteen, not the cops. Nobody."

Foreman made a face and blew irritated air out of his nose. Then he shook his head. "I'm not making any promises."

Chase stared at him, then bit his lip and nodded at the ceiling. Maybe having Foreman blab it would be a good thing; Foreman had a decent if infuriatingly cold reputation, after all. People might be more inclined to take House seriously if Foreman believed him. And it couldn't hurt to have another guy in House's court. "Fine," Chase conceded. "I'll talk to you later."

--TBC


	9. Chapter 9

Chase banged on House's door again but forbore to yell for him any more, mindful of the late hour. He already heard one of House's neighbors shuffling about near the door down the hall and the last thing he wanted was for someone to call the cops on him. With a sigh borne of annoyance and concern, Chase pulled out his cell phone and hit redial.

Just before the ringback tone ended, House picked up. "_The Pretenders. Cool, huh?_" He snuffed. "_Wait, that _is_ the ring tone thingie, right?_"

Chase could hear people in the background, though when he stuck his ear to the door, it didn't sound like the TV was on. He stepped back. "Where the hell are you?"

"_Diner. I had a taste for pancakes. Um…or an omelet. Why, where are you?_"

"At your apartment." Chase stomped back outside, forcing back his irritation. It made perfect sense for House to want to get out of there if Wilson had just been there. "Where's the diner?"

"_Turn right outside my building. Two blocks on the right hand side._" House hung up on him again.

Chase muttered under his breath and waited for a lone cyclist to pass before crossing the street to his car. When he pulled up in front of the twenty-four-hour diner – which appeared seedy at best – House was sitting on the curb with his cane on the ground parallel to his legs, smoking a cigarette. Chase stopped in dangerous proximity to his extended feet and hit the button to roll down the window. "You're smoking?"

House's gaze flicked to the side, the expressional equivalent of _state the obvious much?_ "Yeah. I'd eat the cigarette but it would take twice as long for the nicotine and preservatives to hit my bloodstream. Formaldehyde is great for staving off the aging process."

"House, you had an infarction." Chase hit the door lock button too and waited impatiently for House to lumber to his feet.

From below window level, he heard House snark, "What's your point?"

"Smoking increases clotting factors, moron." One of the scruffy diner patrons stared at Chase's car so Chase flipped him off. House's hand on his window startled him and he cursed under his breath. Since when was he so jumpy?

"Here." House held a styrofoam coffee cup over the passenger seat, which Chase grabbed for him. "And here." House passed him a second cup. "That one's mine. I think the waitress spit in yours."

Chase rolled his eyes, but he smiled. House buying him a coffee was like liquid gratitude encased in non-biodegradable foam. "Thanks." House kept staring at him and he looked at himself, his skin prickling. "What?"

"You're wearing the same clothes." House shuffled to one side and opened the car door. "Did you go home at all?"

Chase shrugged. "I stayed at the lab to run some more tests. You complaining?"

"Nope." He looked puzzled by it, though. "Just figured Cameron would bust you for it."

Chase waited for House to make his awkward way into the car and shut the door, trying to be unobtrusive about giving him the once-over. "I told Allison that I'm helping out a friend. She's cool with it."

House blinked at him, his expression inscrutable. "Oh." Then he faced forward and gave the windshield the same look. "Make a habit of lying to your fiancé? That's a great way to start a marriage."

Chase drew his brows together, perplexed. "How was that a lie?"

Again, House merely looked at him, unreadable behind a barricade of bland disinterest. "Oh." Then he fumbled about the door panel until he found the button to roll up the window.

When House stayed silent, offering nothing more akin to an actual answer, Chase asked, "Are you okay?"

House glared at the ceiling. "If you ask me that one more time, I'll tell Cameron about the peeds nurse you keep flirting with."

"I'm not flirting with a peeds nurse."

"She doesn't know that." House leered at him.

Chase gave him a look and turned up the heat. He knew that the attempt at childish humor was just House's chosen method of deflection. "Seriously. Did – "

"Nothing happened!" House flopped deeper into the passenger seat and glared out the window. "He said he's taking Anafranil. It could cause changes in behavior. Plus, he can't sleep, so lack of REM – "

"Could mimic schizophrenia," Chase finished. "But only to a degree. Is he hallucinating?"

House shrugged, turning sullen in a matter of seconds. "He was weird. Kept talking about magnesium and my eyes." His shoulders moved. "Sorta creepy."

Chase's eyebrows climbed north. "Yeah." He thumped the steering wheel with restless fingers. "So what exact brand of 'nothing' made you call me in the middle of the night to go pick out door locks?"

At first, it seemed that House would pretend Chase hadn't asked, but then he made a show of trying to relax in his seat. "I was sleeping. He used his key." House's voice came out flat, emotionless. It set Chase on edge. "He woke me up, said I must take magnesium supplements to keep my eyes blue, said he couldn't sleep, asked if he could sleep with me…" House shrugged and flipped his fingers as if to brush that off. "He got all weirded out when I said he… I convinced him to leave. End of story, nothing happened." House looked right at Chase after he finished, perhaps to highlight the truth of his assertion that nothing else occurred.

Chase took him at his word; it wasn't like he could do anything else, and House had given him more than Chase expected. "Hardware stores won't open for a few hours. You could come back to my place, try to sleep for – "

"There's gotta be a Wal-Mart around here somewhere. Aren't they open all night?" He shot Chase a look to warn him off further suggestions of sleep.

Chase nodded; he got it. House felt exposed, and he wanted his locks changed now. It made perfect sense, except for the 'House feeling' part. Everybody was human at least once in a while, though, and House had an excellent excuse to react emotionally. "Okay, we'll find a Wal-Mart."

They ended up driving around until seven in the morning, when the actual hardware store opened. Chase didn't know where the Wal-Mart was, and since House did all of his shopping either online or via Wilson, his directions simply served to get them lost for a while. The store manager gave them odd looks as he opened the store for the day; House insisted on standing right in front of the door, waiting with a nasty glower on his face. Chase tried to mitigate the creep factor with a lopsided, embarrassed smile. The manager just walked away, shaking his head.

Once they had located the aisle with locks and such, Chase asked, "Do you know what you want?"

House glared. "Locks. I told you that." He wandered away to scan the merchandise with a slightly puzzled look on his face.

Chase smirked. "You can put a vintage guitar back together, but you have no idea how to install new door locks, do you."

"How hard could it be?" House reached out to finger a deadbolt, then pulled back and fingered his bottom lip instead.

"Can I help you boys find something?"

Chase spun to find the store manager right behind him. "Oh, um. He needs to change his locks." He hooked his thumb at House, who was even then scowling at the hooks, his head tilted to one side.

"Right," the manager said. He seemed a bit standoffish. "What do you need?"

House looked over. "Eager to scare off customers? Good business plan, especially in a recession."

"Aren't you just a ray of sunshine," the manager muttered. He addressed Chase instead. "What does he need?"

"Deadbolt, security chain, and a new set of keyed door knobs." Chase tried to tell House to stay out of it with a firm look, but that merely egged him on.

"I can handle it," House snapped. He returned to a slightly clueless perusal of door fixtures.

The manager crossed his arms and gave Chase an irritated look. "Your friend's kind of an ass. What's his problem?"

Chase mouthed some silent nonsense, then replied, "Crazy ex." He twirled his index finger at his temple and ignored House's outraged snort.

The manager's attitude softened in a heartbeat. "Oh, hell. We've all been there." He brushed past Chase and grabbed a few items from in front of House. "These should do you good."

House eyed him, half uncertain and half contemptuous. "Eighth grade education teach you that? Cuz your grammar sucks."

The manager snorted in amusement and carried the locks toward the front of the store.

Chase made a wide-eyed wow face, and House asked, "Am I losing my touch? Cuz I'm pretty sure I just insulted the guy."

"You must have been cute about it." Chase strayed toward the register too, and in a few seconds, he heard House stump after him. While they waited for the manager to ring them up, House examined a display of flashlights. "House." Chase snapped his fingers. "Pay the man."

House's eyes strayed toward the shop windows. "I….sorta left my wallet at home." He traded a look with the shop keeper, then joked, "Bitch was all up in my face, yellin' and carryin' on…" He made the little gabby gesture with his free hand and bit the inside of his cheek.

"Right." Chase made a face as he dug out his wallet and threw some bills at the manager.

"I'll pay you back," House said.

"Damn right you will." Chase returned his wallet to his pocket and gathered up the purchased items. "And don't think you can weasel out of it. I know where you keep your cash."

"In my underwear."

Chase turned his back and headed to the door. "It's sixty bucks. I'll fish in your trousers for it if I have to." He rethought that comment the moment he said it, but since House made a show of stifling a chuckle, he refrained from apologizing. The store manager raised his brows at the both of them and shook his head as they left.

* * *

Wilson blinked at the dull throb in his skull, then flailed to hit the alarm clock. He had slept like a rock but his mouth was full of cotton and he cast a bleary gaze at the illuminated numbers on his night stand. Seven AM. God, it felt like he had just drifted off. No way had he actually slept for five hours. He tumbled out from under the blankets and tested his balance before stumbling to the toilet to relieve himself. Afterwards, he quashed the impulse to call House and see if he needed a ride to the hospital. Stopping at 221B would just make him late.

Wilson elected to take a cab instead of driving to work. He was unbelievably tired, but keyed up too. The sleeping pill he had taken the night before must have still been filtering through his system. He needed a pot of coffee to help shake it off; he knew he shouldn't have taken it, considering the late hour. Those things called for a full eight hours of sleep time. As it was, he didn't trust himself to stay awake or alert enough behind the wheel of a car.

Once he finally hobbled to his office, squinting through the haze that pounded in his head, Wilson found a post-it waiting on his door for him. _MRI. Noon. Take your meds. –H _

Well, at least House had been considerate enough not to interrupt Wilson's work day. His patients wouldn't be affected, though Wilson would have to eat something small in his office between appointments. That might have been a good thing; he was putting on weight again, and he didn't like it. Side effect of starting the meds again, no doubt. As he pushed through the door, he fished in his briefcase for his pills, since he had indeed forgotten to take one before leaving home. Maybe House was psychic; it would certainly explain how he could smell lies from forty feet.

Except Wilson's lies, that is. House only caught those if Wilson forgot to cover some sort of physical evidence. If all House had to go on were Wilson's smile and tone, he tended not to notice deceit.

Wilson lifted his eyebrows in resignation of something or other. Perhaps in resignation of House's very existence. Then he crossed the office to his desk and started his work day.

* * *

Chase met Foreman for lunch in a café several miles away from PPTH. Neither of them wanted to get caught out by House or Wilson, or anyone else they knew. Plus, Chase was pretty sure that Foreman didn't want to be seen in Chase's company, acting like they were all chummy. Whatever.

"Hey." Chase lifted his chin in a greeting as close to a snub as he could get away with, considering that he needed Foreman right now.

Foreman tilted his head at the vacant chair opposite him and passed Chase a file as he sat. "I copied the entire thing." He picked up his water and quaffed as if it were something stronger. "Now it's your turn."

Chase studied him more carefully for a second. "You seem…off." He glanced at the file in his hands. "What's in here?"

"You'll see for yourself once you read it. Now come on; tell me what's going on."

Chase ignored him and opened the file. Foreman was an idiot; he should have held onto the file until _after_ Chase fulfilled his end of the bargain. Didn't he learn _anything_ from working with House? Chase settled the file on his lap so that the table would block any attempt that Foreman might make to grab it back.

Foreman gave an exasperated sigh an threw himself back in his seat. "Yeah. Go ahead and pretend I didn't just risk imprisonment for you."

"Did you read the psychiatrist's notes?" Chase asked, glancing up. Foreman merely looked at him, so Chase turned back to the file. "He thinks House is obsessed with him."

"House _is_ obsessed with him." Foreman made a show of crossing his arms and appearing bored.

"Hhheee…wishes House felt at least some shame for killing his girlfriend." Chase frowned. "Shame, but not remorse?"

Foreman nodded, then shifted in his seat and tried to hide the emotion that the movement betrayed. "Keep reading."

Chase complied, and then his eyebrows shot up. "Wilson's been fantasizing about ways to humiliate him." He scoffed, though not in any sort of humor. "Well, hell. He's certainly managed that."

"Everyone wants to humiliate House," Foreman cut in. "The man's an egomaniac. No, just keep reading."

"You know, this conversation would go a lot faster if you'd just tell me what's got your knickers in a twist." Chase groused further in silenced, skimming through cramped handwriting on photocopied note pages. "He's depressed, misses his girlfriend, feels guilty for not holding her death against House, thinks he's getting fat, feels guilty for…" Chase's mumbling dribbled off.

Foreman took over, reciting from memory. "For having thought about leaving Amber even before she died because House wouldn't leave him alone. For wondering if he should just stay single because House makes anyone close to Wilson miserable. Because House doesn't have any comprehension of boundaries, because he plays practical jokes on Wilson all the time, because he harasses Wilson's other acquaintances, because he clearly doesn't want Wilson to have free time that doesn't include him…the list goes on." Foreman glared across the table. "_House _is the sick one, Chase. He's practically a stalker. Wilson just doesn't know how to get rid of him, and you're playing right into it. This just gives House ammunition. Now, he can threaten to tell people…whatever – " Foreman waved a hand between them – "unless Wilson goes bowling with him or buys him dinner, or – "

"You're an ass." Chase slammed the file shut and reached down to shove it in his bag.

"Then tell me why I should think otherwise," Foreman snapped. "Prove that it's not just some insane ploy. Oh no, wait – you can't. You don't have any evidence, just House's playacting."

Chase sat back up, flinging hair from his eyes as he did so, and fixed Foreman with the hardest stare he could muster, his forearms leaning on the table so that he could bring their faces closer. He kept his voice low and hissed, "Do you honestly think House would _lie_ about being raped? You just called him an egomaniac – he would _never_ want people thinking that kind of thing about him! It makes him look weak and pathetic, it would make people pity him – House would die before he'd let that get out."

Foreman's only display of gloating was to fracture the straight line of his eyebrows. "So we _are_ talking the R word." His smugness dissipated. "You believe him? You really think Wilson's capable of that? He protects House, covers for him, saves his job, buys him food…Hell, if Wilson didn't feed him, House would probably starve to death."

Chase made a mental note to pick House up some groceries or maybe leave a sandwich lying around on House's desk. Then he screwed his face up in annoyance and flared his nostrils. Nicely played. He averted his eyes long enough to regain his cool, then looked at Foreman again. "Wilson admitted it's going on." Before Foreman's incredulous expression could spawn words, Chase continued. "He thinks it's consensual – he's under the impression that he didn't force House to do anything. And maybe he didn't, not physically…at least, not _entirely_ physically. But Wilson knows damn well how to manipulate House."

Foreman didn't debate that. "You said there were marks. Bruises." At Chase's nod, he asked, "Anything else?"

Chase fidgeted for a second, then pointed to his shoulder. "Wilson bit him. But House wouldn't let me make a cast of it." He glared for emphasis. "Do you think maybe he managed to bite himself somehow just to better play me?"

"No." Foreman sighed and looked away, his hands dropping to his lap. "Actually, I believe you. House has been acting weird. Wilson dropped by the conference room for coffee and House practically ran after me when I walked out."

"He didn't want to be alone with Wilson," Chase divined.

Foreman lifted his shoulders. "Seemed that way to me. I couldn't figure out why, though; figured maybe Wilson was riding him about his drug habit again." Then he snickered and shot a rueful glance at the ceiling. "Bad choice of words."

"So…you were just testing me?" Chase lounged in his seat, about as relaxed as a lion ready to pounce. "You wanted to know if I was in on something? Some joke?"

"I wanted to know how convinced you were," Foreman corrected. He fixed Chase with a look that fell two shades short of apologetic. "Now I know."

Chase offered a wan smile, though it felt more like an irritated grimace. "I really don't have any actual evidence. And House – "

" – won't outright admit it," Foreman interrupted. "I wouldn't either. You said you had a needle, though."

"I, uh…" Chase leaned back in his chair and attempted not to appear sheepish. "I sorta gave it to Wilson." At Foreman's incredulous look, he added, "I just wanted to confront him about the first time, show him I knew, maybe scare him so it didn't happen again."

Foreman stared a bit more, then started forward to settle his forearms on the table. "It wouldn't matter anyway. All the needle proves is that Wilson administered a narcotic pain medication to a chronic pain patient." He slid sideways in his chair, skewing the conversation along with his posture. "You _do_ realize that we can't do anything unless House agrees to accuse him. Without a complaining witness, the law won't recognize a rape."

Chase nodded. "Yeah. But House refuses to even tell me. He makes generalizations and talks circles around it, but he won't actually say it. He doesn't deny it either, though. I only found out at all because House kept having the same nightmare about it when I went over to help him with his leg. He was high on morphine when he told me about the needle."

"So…" Foreman stopped himself, then made what passed for a concerned face on him. Chase found it snobbish, but he let it pass. "You really, truly believe that Wilson's doing this. That House is in danger."

"I _know_ he is," Chase averred.

Foreman stared him down, then resigned himself to it. "Okay." He sighed, then thumbed the pager at his hip. After glancing at the display, he put it back in it's holster on his belt and turned back to Chase. "I'll help. But you need to tell me _everything_ that's been going on. What they said, how they acted… I'm not going into this blind."

Chase nodded, and then started talking. It was actually a relief to say it all out loud.

* * *

Wilson pulled himself out of the MRI machine once the thumping stopped and stretched before he sat up on the tray. He could make out House's dim form hunched over the computer keyboard, presumably saving the scans and sending them off to be processed. The tech said something and House waved him off, his body language short and irritated. It didn't look like he had noticed Wilson moving about, and Wilson was not all that interested in drawing attention to it, not yet. He watched House with as much intent as House used to make sure that the results were in order, then slid off the MRI table. Silent, bare feet carried Wilson into the observation room; House only glanced up when Wilson's shadow fell across his hands on the keyboard. He spun to regard the MRI chamber as soon as he saw Wilson, as if to verify that he weren't still in the machine.

House started to rise, fumbling to get his cane planted and his cell phone shut before Wilson drew up behind him. It pained Wilson to see him reduced to this sort of fear where before, they were so easy around each other. That was Wilson's doing, him and his damned…whatever that was in the exam room. House had consented, though; maybe he shouldn't have, maybe Wilson should have noticed something off, but he knew the man too well. If House had really wanted to stop, he could have taken Wilson. House knew how to defend himself in a scrape.

Wilson quelled House's attempt to stand by pressing his hand down on House's right shoulder. "Relax. I'm not gonna do anything."

House started to call out to the lab tech, but the door was already swinging shut in the man's wake. He slumped down in his seat, then threw Wilson a wary glance where he stood poised behind him. "You've put on weight. Now leggo."

Wilson scowled and left his hand where it was as he leaned forward over House's shoulder, crowding him down into the chair. He used the pretense of the MRI to distract House for the moment. "Find anything?"

"Not sure." House tucked his cane between his knees and focused on the blank screen. He had already sent the scans away to be processed into proper films. "Maybe. I'll let you know." He craned his neck to look at Wilson's face, which hovered in profile beside his head. "You should go get dressed. Lunch hour's almost over."

"It's okay." Wilson kept his eyes trained on the dark monitor, but he began to knead at House's shoulders, as if it were natural for him to do so. And why shouldn't it be? They had been more intimate with each other than this; a light shoulder rub was nothing. "I don't have any appointments until three and I told my assistant I might be late getting back. We have time."

House tensed under his hands and Wilson wondered if he were making House's no-doubt sore muscles worse. "Time for what?"

"Whatever we feel like." Wilson ducked his head, his breath stirring the collar of House's button-down. "I really am sorry, House." He left off rubbing House's shoulders and reached to trace the cuff of House's left wrist. Only the edge of a bruise showed beyond the shirt. "I didn't mean for that." He sighed, his mouth turning inward, regretful. "I wanted you to get something out of it too. I tried, but you just made me so angry – "

"The doors don't lock," House interrupted. "Anybody could walk in." He leaned to the right, gently moving his cane and his hand out from under Wilson's fingers.

Wilson tightened his grip on House's right shoulder in response, to prevent him from pulling away too far. "It doesn't matter. I'm not worried about people finding out."

"Yeah," House scoffed, but his voice came out too thick to be borne of pure sarcasm. "Because then everybody would assume we're doing each other and it's mutual, and I'm fine with it. That would make you happy, wouldn't it? If everybody assumed I'm full of shit because nice Jimmy Wilson is nice enough to give his crippled best friend – "

Wilson struck without even thinking; he caught House across the side of his head, luckily with a flattened palm. House shut up and shied, his hand covering his ear, but the placement of Wilson's bare foot kept him from rolling the chair away.

"Oh god!" Wilson grabbed him in a bear hug from behind to keep him from doing anything in response, and squeezed. Don't hurt him. Can't hurt him. Hurting means losing him forever. Can't have that; Wilson lost so much already. No more. "Sorry, sorry – I didn't mean it." He held House in place in the chair, folded forward over him with his chin digging into the top of House's head.

House froze, one hand curled over the head of his cane, the other still cupping his cuffed ear.

"I'm sorry," Wilson repeated, punctuating it with a soft kiss to the crown of House's head. House went rigid in his grasp and tried to pull away but Wilson shifted to hold him more firmly. "I'm going about this poorly. I know that. I just… Why can't you admit that you want this too? I know you do – you've made it so clear."

House mumbled an expletive followed by a feeble attempt to dislodge the arms cinched around him.

Wilson scrambled to grab his wrists and hold him still. "It doesn't have to be this way. House, I can make this good for both of us. The thing in the exam room – I got carried away, you were just…you smelled so good, and the way you looked on the floor, I couldn't resist – "

"I'm _not_ flattered, Wilson." House struggled without any real impetus, then stilled. "I don't want to hurt you. Please just stop now."

"Nobody's going to get hurt." Wilson dropped his left hand to a point just below House's waist, and House scooted back in the chair. It allowed Wilson to get a more solid grip on him with the arm still wrapped over his chest. "I'll make it up to you."

House sucked in a broken breath as Wilson slid his hand lower, and tried to throw himself backward. Again, all he did was insinuate himself deeper into Wilson's grasp. "No, I don't need you to make it up to me."

"Look, just let me take the lead, okay?" Wilson curled his fingers lightly over the shapes beneath the denim between House's legs, oh so gentle, almost timid. "Just give in. You liked this before. Remember? On the couch?" Something stirred under Wilson's hand and he encouraged it with a bit of rubbing, nothing too forceful. "It can be like that. All the time, it can be like that."

"Fuck." House bit his lip and twisted his torso, his good leg raising to dislodge Wilson's fingers, but Wilson managed to keep his left hand between House's legs and his right arm tightly bound over House's chest. "Wilson, this – "

"Why are you still fighting it?" Wilson watched House's legs quiver, his feet shuffling on the floor as Wilson stimulated him, fighting with himself over pulling away or spreading his legs farther. "You said you wanted it once before, you said you wanted me… You can have me. Just give in."

House sucked on his bottom lip to muffle a whimper, his body a mass of tension and angles held in Wilson's unrelenting grasp. It seemed like he fought the inclination to cringe, and Wilson awarded himself points for that. House was relaxing for him; something Wilson did was starting to work.

"Doesn't it feel good?" Wilson rubbed a bit harder, digging the heel of his palm into House's growing erection. House gasped and flexed his back before he could stop himself, and Wilson shifted his forearm over House's sternum. "This is better than last time, right?"

"Um…bha…better," House admitted, though he sounded pained and hiccups kept erupting from his chest.

"That's right," Wilson crooned in his ear. "You're okay." He evened his movements, stroking House rhythmically through his jeans.

House's inhales turned to ragged gulps and he turned his head as far to the right as he could, away from Wilson. At the same time, though, his pelvis shifted; he couldn't help responding to Wilson's attentions. "I'm okay," he echoed.

* * *

Chase flipped his phone open while he and Foreman waited at the register. The hostess must have been on sabbatical. Did smoke and bathroom breaks typically take this long? Hm. A missed call from House. Chase dialed and stuck the phone to his ear, then waved to get Foreman's attention. "I'm gonna step outside for a sec to call House back. This place gets crappy reception."

"House called you?" Foreman asked. "When?"

Chase listened to the ringback tone, poised on the threshold with cold air blowing past his legs. Papers fluttered on the hostess's podium. "He left a message maybe ten minutes ago. My phone was in my coat pocket; I didn't feel it ring."

Foreman's eyebrows fell into a V between his eyes. "The page I just got was from House, 911 to the MRI lab. He asked me this morning to sit in on an MRI at noon but I told him I had lunch plans." His face went slack. "You said Wilson promised him an MRI."

"Yeah." House's number switched to voicemail and Chase lowered the phone. His thumb located the end button on habit alone. "I didn't check the schedule to see if House set it up yet." House was at the hospital; he knew better than to go somewhere alone with Wilson, didn't he? Wasn't the hospital safe enough?

"Did you leave someone with him?" Foreman asked. The edge to his voice threw Chase off; Foreman sounded like the situation was getting to him, making him feel something other than smug arrogance and pomp. "Taub? Kutner?"

"There are lab techs," Chase said. Even to his own ears, his voice sounded hollow. "Nurses... I was only gonna be gone for an hour. And it's the _hospital_." Yeah. The hospital had proven itself _really_ safe lately.

Forman pressed his lips together. "That's a no, then."

"I didn't think..." Chase just stopped talking at that point because he had nothing to add. He simply didn't think.

They each threw a twenty next to the unmanned register next to their checks and sprinted out into the parking lot.

* * *

This was so much better with a sober House. Wilson trolled around behind House's ear, licking the reddened flesh where he had struck just a few minutes ago. "See? It doesn't have to be bad. It can be exactly what you want." He listened to the air whistle between House's teeth as he sucked in a breath. "You just have to give in." Wilson ran his lips down House's neck, then grazed and nibbled at the skin just above his collar. "You deserve to feel good, House. Just like everyone else."

House's eyes flew open and he wrenched his shoulder away from Wilson's mouth. "No, I'm done. This isn't good."

Wilson swore inwardly; he'd forgotten about the bite mark he left there the day before. "Stop, just wait." Wilson refused to let up until House raised his cane – actually raised it, like he intended to use it as a weapon. "Dammit." He grabbed the cane with one hand and tried to pull it from House's grasp without releasing his chest, but House wriggled down in his seat like a toddler slipping free from an adult unaccustomed to the contortionist properties of children. Wilson seized at a handful of House's shirt and hauled him back up a few inches, still fighting to yank the cane away and avoid getting jabbed with the rubber tip. He merely ended up snagging the handle on the armrest of the chair, but a thought struck him when he noticed. The MRI room chairs had free-standing armrests; Wilson could hook the cane behind them and trap House in place, restrain him at waist level.

House seemed to realize this too because he twisted in the seat, frantic to get out of the chair, even if he ended up in a puddle on the floor. Wilson shoved his left arm under House's and grabbed a fistful of skin along with House's shirt tails and belt. A yelp echoed through the glass enclosure on account of pinched flesh, but Wilson managed to drag House back up into the chair. He pulled the cane hard across House's midsection before the opportunity passed and hooked it behind the other arm rest. The wood dug into House's stomach, but not too badly, and it freed Wilson to wrestle House's arms until they were pinned to House's chest, his whole frame bent and quaking, and ensconced in Wilson. Wilson basically hugged him, and the chair by default, against his stomach. The back of the chair ground in against Wilson's groin but he shifted before the friction could cause any inadvertent arousal; he was borderline as it was from fighting House into some semblance of submission, and he didn't want to be tempted to ruin this the way he had yesterday.

House panted wordless syllables, cringing with nowhere to go, his eyes squeezed shut and his hands clenched into fists with Wilson's fingers ringed about his wrists. With regret, Wilson reflected that he would probably leave fresh bruises on account of his grip, but it couldn't be helped; House could have cooperated and avoided this. The fact that he refused to go along with it pissed Wilson off.

"House." House flinched; Wilson's mouth hovered right next to his ear. "Why do you have to be so difficult? You can't ever let someone else be in control. You have to let go once in a while – you can't always…" He stopped as House started mumbling under his breath, then craned his neck to hear better. House repeated the same phrase, over and over: _I'm okay, I'm okay, I'm okay…_ Wilson rolled his eyes, both overwhelmed and exasperated by the amount of fear that such a simple thing could engender in a man as stalwart and unflappable as House normally was. "Yes, you are. You're okay." He sighed because he could see thin lines of moisture seeping out to saturate House's eyelashes. "What exactly do you think I'm going to do to you?"

Wilson didn't know if he would deign to answer, but House blinked his eyes open, releasing a tear from one side. Accidental emotion. Wilson watched it run a jagged trail down his cheek until it got lost in spiky stubble. "I dunno." House's gaze wandered up to confront their reflection in the glass and he met Wilson's eyes there. He swallowed around a lump in his throat that Wilson could feel brushing the top of one thumb. "I don't wanna get caught."

Wilson rolled his eyes and smiled. "So what if we do? Cuddy will suspend us, maybe." He laughed a little. "Hell, she lets you get away with so much already, maybe she won't do anything at all."

"Maybe she'll thank you, under the mistaken impression that I'll be more civil if I'm getting some."

Wilson frowned. The sarcasm sounded wrong somehow, though he couldn't place it. Perhaps it was too vicious, too much like a snarl. "That's uncalled for." It seemed a safe response, considering.

House balked and his voice turned shrill, or at least as shrill as man's voice could get. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He fought to free his hands and nearly rolled the chair over Wilson's toes in the process.

Wilson pranced away from the casters, forcing back the anger that percolated at the edges of his thoughts in response to House's continued resistance. This wasn't token refusal of Wilson's advances, not like the first time when he had been too stoned to understand what was happening, or like the couch when they had both been drunk and impaired, or even like the exam room where Wilson had simply taken him off guard. House was actually fighting him, whole-heartedly fighting him.

Wilson had to subdue him before he hurt one of them, so he released one of House's wrists and locked his forearm over House's windpipe. "Stop it!" He jerked House's head back and ignored the blunt fingernails digging into his skin as House tried to pry him off. "What the hell, House? I'm being _nice_ to you!" House turned his head toward the crook of Wilson's elbow so that he could at least gasp in enough oxygen to stave off unconsciousness. Wilson let him, then hissed, "I'm doing this for you! Do you get that? This is what _you_ want!"

House started to shake his head but Wilson's arm made the motion too difficult. Instead, he rasped, "I don't want it. I don't want it like this, Wilson. You're not you; you think you are, but – "

Wilson pulled his arm tighter to cut off House's words along with his breath. "You manipulative prick. You maneuvered me here – don't shake your head! This is _your_ doing!"

House's chest heaved as he tried to draw breath. The only thing he could manage to expel was a sob that sounded a bit like the word _no_.

"Just stop fighting me," Wilson pled. Pleading sounded edgy when it came from Wilson's mouth. "House, I know you. I know you can't admit that you want certain things, that you're lonely. But I _see_ that. Okay?" He let up on House's windpipe just enough to let him breathe. "Now let me fix it for you."

"Wilson…" House's voice grated past his abused throat. "That's not what you're doing."

"How would you know?" Wilson demanded. He softened a great deal as he realized that House had stilled, relatively docile now that he couldn't escape. "For all you know, I could love you, but you're too screwed up to realize it."

House went perfectly still in Wilson's arms. "Yesterday, you said you hated me."

"For god's sake, House." Wilson removed his arm from House's throat and crouched behind him, his hand on House's hip for balance. He retained his grip on House's right wrist, though. "I said _sometimes_ I hate you. Everybody hates once in a while. I hate all sorts of people sometimes, people I usually like, or certain things about a person."

With surprising force, House asserted, "I never hate you."

Wilson sighed and rested his forehead against the back of House's neck. House jumped at the touch, then relaxed again. "Not everyone is you. We can't all deal in absolutes."

"Okay, fine." House squirmed a bit. "Can I go now?"

Wilson glanced at the clock in the corner of the computer monitor. "We still have a few minutes." His hand migrated inward, folding over House's good thigh. House's respirations picked up and he moved his leg away; Wilson's hand followed. "Relax, House. It's okay to enjoy this."

House tipped his head toward the ceiling, resigned, then stopped moving altogether.

Finally. Wilson slipped his hand to House's inner thigh, noting the fine shiver that coursed through House's frame at the intimate caress. "Good. That's good, House."

Even though no response was needed, House nodded. He wouldn't look at anything aside from the ceiling, though; it seemed like he wanted to avoid accidentally catching a glimpse of Wilson in any of the many reflective surfaces scattered about the MRI lab. Goaded on by House's complacency, Wilson ran his hand higher until he encountered the firmness of House's crotch. He was beginning to see the pattern to House's reactions. As long as Wilson kept his voice soft and agreeable, as long as he stayed indirect, House let Wilson touch. It was only when Wilson approached too fast or yelled, or challenged his motives that House felt a need to defend himself. Skittish was an apt word for it. Like a cornered wild dog that knew that submission to a random gentle word was sometimes the only way to avoid further hurt. Besides, if House struggled too hard, he chanced causing Wilson inadvertent harm. And he had already stated that he did not want to do that. It was easier and safer to give in, for both their sakes.

Denim scratched Wilson's fingers as he ran them over House's clothed genitals, dismayed by the way House's muscles twitched in a suppressed impulse to flee. Wilson shifted his feet and rose a bit higher so that he could mouth along House's carotid. His hand teased at House's fly, raking fingernails and soft nudges to the flesh below while his tongue drew complicated patterns on House's bare skin. House tipped his head to give him better access and Wilson suppressed a triumphant grin. He tongue-kissed his way to a patch of stubble, then apportioned his weight so that he could stand behind House again.

House sank into the chair and practically flung his head to the right when Wilson tried to reach his mouth. Undeterred, Wilson gripped House's crotch in what he considered a pleasant manner. House grunted and scooted back a bit, but Wilson finally felt a stirring in his hand. He nipped at House's hairline and then rimmed the shell of House's ear with his lips. At the same time, he alternately kneaded and stroked House through his jeans, patient because he knew that chronic opiate use could make this difficult for House. House gave an explosive exhale, then shuddered for a second. His eyes were shut tight and Wilson tried to coax him to participate a little bit by releasing his other wrist.

The moment Wilson let go, House grabbed the arm rest in a death grip that rattled the whole chair. Wilson pretended not to notice and slid his right hand under House's shirts. He scratched House's flanks on his way up, then sought after a nipple to roll between his fingers. House made an indeterminate sound and failed to suppress a flinch even though Wilson hadn't really done anything. He arched in his seat, though, and Wilson could feel the denim stretching taut under his fingers.

"How does that feel?" Wilson petted a patch of House's stomach, smoothing out bunched muscles that rippled as House panted. He left off pawing at House's groin and moved his hand to House's belt. "Good?"

"Fine." House bit his lip as soon as Wilson tugged at his belt buckle. His voice dropped to a plaintive whisper nowhere in keeping with the words he spoke. "It's good. Really…feels good."

Wilson bent over him, surrounding House with his body. "Come on. Just relax." He could reach the corner of House's mouth from this angle, even when House shied to evade him. Hot, Vicodin scented breath bathed Wilson's nostrils as House exhaled a shaky, stale lungful of air. Wilson could see his lashes fluttering as he stared at nothing. "It's okay to like it, House. Everyone needs to let go once in a while."

House hummed something distressed and grabbed the hand that Wilson had left splayed near House's navel.

Wilson intertwined their fingers and allowed House to drag his hand up to rest over his breastbone. A wild thumping vibrated across the back of Wilson's hand where it covered House's heart. "Am I hurting you?"

House shook his head, but the motion seemed uptight somehow. "Fine. It's fine." When Wilson slid his hand inside House's jeans, which he left buttoned for now, just for kicks, House jerked in the chair. It wasn't clear, however, whether he did so out of surprise or something else. A sound escaped him on an exhale and then he stilled again, his cane digging into the soft flesh of his abdomen. House's fingers tightened over Wilson's, as if holding on for dear life.

Wilson rubbed House through the boxers a few times, dismayed that House was merely firm at this point, even after a bout of incessant teasing. In fact, Wilson himself, with no direct stimulation, was probably farther along. He swallowed the impulse to say something biting about that, something about ingratitude and Wilson going to all this trouble for nothing, then withdrew his hand. As Wilson slid his fingers inside the waistband to touch flesh, House grunted and elongated his torso, his back arching though the cane prevented him from moving his hips. His next breath turned into a whine that sounded decidedly unpleasant. He bared his neck, however, and Wilson crouched lower so that House could rest the back of his head on Wilson's shoulder. House's cock responded in kind, filling with heat in Wilson's hand.

Wilson ran his palm down its length and then curled his fingers around the base. "See? You're getting worked up over nothing." Tenderness imbued his words, and he noted the paradoxical effect that the tone had on House. "Hey, calm down." Wilson maintained a firm grip on House's cock but he paused in mid stroke. "House, it's okay. I've got you."

"No," House moaned, and then his chest stuttered under Wilson's hand as he tried to breathe. "You never wanted me. You're not… You hate me. You're supposed to hate me."

Wilson squeezed House's fingers and did his best impression of a warm embrace from his position behind House's chair. He spoke slowly, his words carefully chosen. "I know this is hard for you. Affection…doesn't come naturally to you, House. It can be confusing, I'm sure. But…you have to trust me. I don't hate you. I hate things that you've done, but not you." He tried to sound light hearted. "I mean, how could I? You killed for me, and that was just for friendship. You're…completely devoted. You're the only constant thing in my life, and I know that will never change because _you_ never change."

House opened his eyes and blinked at the bare air in front of him. His gaze flickered to the door, then to the reflection in the window. Wilson watched him tilt his head at the reflection, at the cozy picture they made.

Wilson craned his neck to better see the flesh and blood House. "See?"

House's chin lifted, then settled again in a parody of a nod.

"You're still confused," Wilson guessed.

"Yeah." House licked his lips, then turned to meet Wilson's eyes. The look on his face was so open, so innocent and scared, that Wilson felt his own expression soften, the edges fading into something else. House was so like a child, genuinely lost, searching. It reminded Wilson so poignantly of the night he had given House morphine that he could actually smell the sleepy scent of the bed clothes, the faint tang of pained sweat drying in the cool air. Wilson recalled the softness of House's skin, the rounded edges of his body giving way to a gentle caress, the whispered breaths and the small, plaintive whimpers as House had grasped Wilson's shirt buttons and comforted himself with the scent of Wilson near him.

Wilson felt…something. He wasn't sure what it was, but it slithered through him, unfamiliar and soothing somehow, and yet foreign to the point that it frightened him to feel it. His eyes fixed on House, who stared back at him, rapt; he could see that thing in Wilson's expression, in the crinkles in the corners of Wilson's eyes maybe, or his slightly parted lips. And House's expression changed too. Wilson saw his eyes widen just a fraction and he shifted a bit on the seat. Wilson's fingers tightened reflexively around House's cock. He stared into two wells of magnesium-laden crystal, too blue, too stark. Need. That was the expression House wore. Desperate need to consume whatever it was that House saw in Wilson's face. Yearning to drown in it, to occlude all else. Wilson's brow furrowed and he folded his lips inward, trying to figure out what had brought that out on House's face.

And then House leaned up to kiss him.

All thought fled for a moment. Wilson returned the kiss with every ounce of repressed desire in his body, and then he wondered at the fact that there _was_ repressed desire. He wanted to throw House down over the table, but not here. There would be time for that later, after House came to understand what actual affection looked like. God, the poor man, living for so long convinced that he was too damaged or too cynical or too much of an ass to be the object of anyone's want.

A breathy moan left House's mouth and smothered itself in Wilson's. Wilson slid his mouth over to House's jaw, and then to his neck, and tongued the hollow of House's throat. He paused long enough to mumble House's name, his voice pitchy and threaded through with too much oxygen to be audible from more than two feet. House answered by biting his lip on an obvious groan, and gave himself over to Wilson's hands and mouth.

Wilson felt something inside himself swell and break as he realized that he had no idea what House had seen to make him respond like this. It felt wrong not to know, and yet kiss him back. It felt like taking advantage, though Wilson couldn't imagine how. He pushed the feeling aside and snaked his tongue into House's mouth. Fingers laced through the hair at the back of Wilson's head and he opened his eyes again; he didn't remember closing them. House still clutched Wilson's right hand to his chest, but he was tugging at Wilson's head with the other, trying to deepen the kiss, to bring Wilson's mouth around to a better angle.

Wilson's eyes trailed down the length of House's suddenly overheated body, to the point where his left hand disappeared into House's pants. Though House couldn't do much aside from squirm his hips on account of his cane trapping him in place, he managed to shove his cock a centimeter or so farther into Wilson's fist. It was apparently enough for now because House ground back and forth that little bit as he allowed Wilson to plunder his mouth, flexing backwards in the chair to better crush Wilson's lips against his own. His fingers curled around the back of Wilson's neck to hold him in place, his eyes squeezed shut so that half of his face scrunched around his eye sockets, as if House feared that looking would spell the loss of the enigmatic something that Wilson had let slip to him. Like Orpheus losing his soul mate on account of one accidental glance.

Wilson wrenched his fingers free from House's other hand and wrapped his arm as much around House's upper body as he could, his fingernails dug into House's flank as if to keep hell from snatching him back. House's left hand clutched at the back of Wilson's neck, holding Wilson's chin down over his shoulder. Then the chair squeaked and Wilson tripped over himself as he reset his feet. They were running out of time in here; someone was bound to walk in at any second. Though Wilson had professed not to care about being discovered in the act, he really didn't want anyone to know about this thing between them. House reacted too inconsistently to Wilson's advances, and Wilson didn't want anyone getting the wrong idea.

"Shit - fuck!" House hissed and squirmed as Wilson picked up the pace, fighting to keep quiet; the hallways were always busy right after lunch and they ran the real danger of making spectacles of themselves. House latched both hands to the chair arms, his knuckles fading to white as he held on. Wilson swirled his wrist as well as he could within the confines of House's jeans, and House bucked. The cane kept him pinned but the chair creaked and rattled. "Mmm - _nngh_!"

"That's right. Come on." Wilson tightened his grips, both on House's cock and over his chest. "Come on. Let go. You're close, aren't you?"

House expelled a desperate whimper that ran half out through his nose, nearly blowing snot on Wilson's arm. "Close," he growled past clenched teeth.

"Mm." Wilson purred into House's neck and grazed his teeth over the pulse point there. "You're so hot like this, House. Come for me. Come on - you can do it. Just let it go."

"Hhah...it's not...m'too close..." House shuddered and doubled over, and Wilson sped up still more, fascinated by the way House's jeans bunched and pulled, the denim-muffled sound of being jerked off while clothed. House strained against the arm that Wilson kept clamped over his chest. "Can't." House grunted, equal parts arousal and frustration. "Can't...Wilson - "

"Sure you can," Wilson crooned in his most suggestive tone. It was the one he pulled out to secure one night stands from unsuspecting nurses. Of course, this was not a use to which he had ever thought to put it. "I know you can. Just relax. I need you to come for me, House."

"Fuck." Short, breathless grunt of a word. Then again, "Fuck." House quaked from the strain, tensed to the snapping point, so close that even Wilson could feel it. Damn Vicodin.

Wilson's breathing matched House's by design, too rapid, shallow, and yet even. It left Wilson feeling light-headed, giddy from being on the verge of hyperventilating. He could only imagine how this felt for House. Wilson's hand moved to a steady cadence of softly shuffed denim contorting over his fist. "Almost," Wilson whispered.

House shivered harder and his breath hitched, so Wilson tightened his fingers a fraction, the blunt nails of his other hand scratching lightly across the fabric of House's shirt. He teased a nipple through cotton and House threw his head back, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. Wilson felt him stiffen, a gasp frozen in his chest, and then House bit back a strangled sound as he came, whimpering and squirming against the cane trapping his hips in place, Wilson's fist working through smears of hot ejaculate.

Finally, House gave a violent shudder and slumped back into Wilson's arms, an exhausted groan on his lips, and Wilson slipped his hand out of House's pants. His hospital smock made a decent rag and Wilson cleaned his hand off while House wheezed to gather his breath.

"See?" Wilson said. He perched on the edge of the computer desk and crossed his arms, pleased with himself. "I told you it could be good."

House panted for a second, then glared up at Wilson without really lifting his head. "You're a fucking sick bastard."

Wilson's eyes narrowed. "You participated this time."

"_This_ time," House agreed, but it was an argument in disguise. He slid his cane out from behind the chair arms as he kept speaking. "Not like I had any other options. You're obsessed."

"House." Wilson could feel his body growing taut with anger. "You gave in. You kissed me. You obviously want me."

"No, I want _Wilson_!" House struggled not to overbalance as he climbed to his feet, putting his clothes to rights with shaking fingers. "He just happens to be stuck in there with you."

Wilson scoffed, but he could have traced the path of the irrational fury as it bounded through his system, tensing muscles along the way, flushing his skin. "Oh, please. You just can't admit that you've been stalking me half my life because you love me."

House stood there, practically quaking on his feet, his cane planted on the ground close to his right foot. "This is just revenge, isn't it. There's nothing wrong with you at all, you're just messing with me because you're pissed that your girlfriend wolfed down Amantadine and then followed me onto a damn bus. It's payback. You didn't come back here because you forgave me, you came back so that you could – "

Wilson exploded off the desk and stormed toward House. "Shut up!"

House raised his cane on instinct and hopped back a step. "I don't know what the fuck you want from me. You're behaving erratically; one minute you're all sweet, and the next you're screaming at me. I can't figure out if you're playing me or on drugs or just off your rocker."

Wilson seized a handful of House's shirt front before he realized that he had crossed the distance separating them. "I'm _loving you_!" It didn't really occur to him that those words weren't meant to be shouted in someone's face while quivering with poorly suppressed rage. "What's so _hard_ to understand about that? You could have died too, House. Every time I think about that, I _– _" _Can't move, can't breathe – panic, drift, can't fucking let that happen… _ "I can't lose you too – I have to keep you, why the fuck can't you _see _that?"

They were both breathing too hard in the confined space of the observation partition; it should have fogged the glass window, moisture in a shivering dark space. House broke the silence. "Compulsive behavior."

Wilson's eyes narrowed as he dug his fingernails into his own palms and fought back the terrified anger. Tight-lipped, unsteady, voice raw from screaming, he asked, "Gonna add that to your white board?"

"Yeah." House licked his lips. "Let go of my shirt."

"You love me too. Say it." Wilson twisted the fabric clenched in his fingers. "Say that's why you can't leave me alone. Say it's why you hoard me like a fresh pill bottle." He shook House a bit, more because Wilson himself was shaking by then, unable to stop, beyond able to suppress the rampant emotion. His voice fell to a strained whisper, words too painful to speak at normal volume. "Say that's why you drove everyone else off and then killed her when she wouldn't go too."

Audible breaths assaulted the room, House's shoulders moving with each drought of oxygen he pulled into his lungs. A tic manifested in House's cheek, anger and fear, maybe disgust as well. It twisted House's mouth into an ugly sneer, but there were unshed tears too, desperate pleading behind cerulean irises, confusion, the frantic need to render the world back into a shape that made sense. "No."

--TBC


End file.
